BR  50  ,T438  1907 


Theology  at  the  dawn  of  the 
twentieth  century 


Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the 
Twentieth  Century 


THEOLOGY 
AT  THE  DAWN  OF  THE 
TWENTIETH  CENTURY 

ESSAYS 
ON  THE  PRESENT  STATUS  OF 
CHRISTIANITY    AND     ITS     DOCTRINES 

Edited  with  an   Introduction  by 
J.    VYRNWY 'MORGAN,    D.D. 


BOSTON 

SHERMAN,   FRENCH    &   COMPANY 

MCMVII 


Copyright,   1900,  by 
SMAT.L,  MAYNARD  &  COMPANY 

(Incorporated) 

Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall 


To 

G.   W.   WATTLES,  Esq., 

Omaha,  Nebraska, 

in  recognition  of  many  kindnesses 

during  the  last  days  of  my  co^npanion  in  life 

who  passed  away  from  earth, 

behind  the  veil  into  the  unseen  glory, 

on  January  i,  igoo 


PREFACE 

This  work  is  made  up  of  original  essays,  prepared  expressly 
in  response  to  my  appeal,  by  eminent  theologians  in  England 
and  the  United  States,  for  the  purpose  I  had  in  view,  namely,  to 
show  the  status  of  great  questions  at  this  period  and  how  far 
religion  and  theology  have  been  influenced  by  the  progress  of 
scientific  research. 

President  Faunce  of  Brown  University  had  promised  an 
original  essay  on  Christian  Science,  but  he  subsequently  felt 
compelled  to  substitute  the  one  which  he  wrote  for  the  Chicago 
Standard,  and  which  is  one  of  the  series  of  studies  published  by 
the  Fleming  H.  Revell  Company,  under  the  title  '*  Search 
Lights  on  Christian  Science." 

My  task  has  been  a  laborious  one,  covering  a  period  of  two 
years.  There  are  sad  memories  connected  with  those  years, 
and  I  wish  to  express  my  great  obligation  to  my  friend,  the 
Rev.  H.  O.  Rowlands,  D.  D.,  Lincoln,  Nebraska,  for  the  benefit 
of  his  varied  and  ample  experience.  I  thank  that  noble-hearted 
man,  Dean  Hart  of  Denver,  for  his  unfailing  encouragement, 
ani  also  the  various  contributors  for  their  sympathetic  co- 
operation. No  eloquence  of  words  can  do  justice  to  their  confi- 
dence and  affection. 

The  questions  discussed  represent  almost  all  aspects  of  the- 
ology and  of  the  ministry,  and  they  possess  an  urgency  to-day 
which  they  have  never  hitherto  possessed.  Care  has  been  taken 
in  arranging  the  subjects  so  as  to  give  the  discussion  a  sys- 
tematic completeness.     The  discussion  goes  down  to  the  roots 

vii 


Vlll 


Preface 


of  things  and  has  high  and  permanent  value.  It  shows  the 
scientific  drift  of  the  century  now  closing,  together  with  its 
bearing  upon  the  intellectual  and  ethical  movements  which  are 
now  going  on  around  us — movements  that  have  changed  not 
only  our  theories  but  the  very  spirit  of  our  thinking.  1 
wish  to  say  that  while  I  have  been  honored  in  presenting 
these  authors  to  the  public,  it  cannot  be  expected  that  I  should 
endorse  all  their  views.  I  have  endeavored  to  be  impartial, 
and  to  give  an  honest  analysis  of  the  trend  of  current  thought 
upon  these  fundamental  questions,  as  shown  in  this  book.  I 
have  given  special  attention  to  two  or  three  themes  that  seem 
to  be  absorbing  public  thinking  at  the  moment.  Want  of  space 
forbids  me  to  call  attention  to  every  topic  in  full. 

J.  Vyrnwy  Morgan. 
December,  1900. 


CONTENTS 


Introduction                                         v  page 

The  Reverend  J.  Vyrnwy  Morgan,  D.D xiii 

Christianity  at  the  End  of  the  Nineteenth  Century. 

Frederic^  Harrison,  Esquire,  London 3 

The  Fundamental  Conception  in  Christianity. 

/.  Sovereignty  the  Fundamental  Conception  in  Christianity. 

The  Reverend  Henry  A.*  Stimson,  D.D.,  Manhattan  Con- 
gregational   Church,    New    York 21 

//.  Love  the  Fundamental  Idea  in  Christianity. 

The  Reverend  Frank' Crane,  Pastor  Hyde  Park  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  Chicago,  Illinois 31 

Is  Christianity  Founded  upon  a  Book  or  upon  a  Person? 

The  Reverend  L.  W.'*' Batten,  Ph.D.,  St.  Mark's  Church 
in-the-Bowery,  New  York 43 

Christianity  and  Its  Competitors* 

The  Reverend  Harry  Jones,  M.  A.,  Prebendary  of  St. 
Paul's,  London,  and  Chaplain-in-Ordinary  to  Her  late 
Majesty,   the   Queen 51 

The  Doctrine  of  the  Immanence  of  God. 

The  Reverend  James^Eells,  Pastor  First  Unitarian  Church, 
Boston,    Massachusetts 61 

Evolution  in  Its  Relation  to  Man  and  Religion. 

I.  The  Very  Reverend  H.   MartynHart,   D.D.,   Dean  of   St. 

John's   Cathedral,   Denver,   Colorado 75 

V 

II.  Rabbi  Emil   G.   Hirsch,   LL.D.,   Professor   in  University  of 

Chicago,  Pastor  of  Sinai  Congregation,  Chicago,  Illinois  .      91 

Scripture  Inspiration  and  Authority. 

I.  The   Reverend   A.    C.   Dixon,    D.D.,    Pastor   Hanson    Place 

Baptist  Church,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y loi 

II.  The    Reverend    S.    D.  '"McConnell,    D.D.,    Rector    of    Holy 

Trinity   Church,    New   York 117 

The  Old  Testament  in  the  Light  of  Higher  Criticism^ 

I.  The    Reverend    Professor    Henry    Preserved    Smith,    D.D., 

Amherst,  Massachusetts 127 

II.  The  Reverend  Professor  Meredith  O.  'Smith,  M.A.,  Nasho- 

tah,   Wisconsin ...     141 

ix 


X  Contents 

What  Has  Become  of  Hell?          ^  page 

The    Reverend    G.    W.    Shinn,    D.D.,    Rector    of    Grace 
Church,    Newton,    Massachusetts I5g 

Future  Retribution. 

/.  Future  Punishment.  ^^ 

The    Reverend    Charles    A.    Dickinson,    D.D.,    Pastor    of 
Berkeley   Temple,    Boston,    Massachusetts        .        .        .     177 
//.  Is  Punishment  Everlasting? 

The  Reverend  James  De  Normandie,  D.D.,  Pastor  First 
Religious  Society,  Roxbury,  Massachusetts  .  .  .191 
III.  The  Bearing  of  the  Teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  on  Man's  Fu- 
ture Destiny. 
The  Reverend  Caleb  Scott,  B.A.,  LL.B.  (London),  D.D. 
(St.  Andrews)  ;  Principal  of  Lancashire  College,  Man- 
chester, England 203 

Universalism. 

L  The  Reverend  L  M.  Atwood,  D.D.,  General  Superintendent 

Universalist  Church,  Rochester,   New  York        .        .        .215 
n.  The  Reverend  David  N.  Beach,  D.D.,  Pastor  First  Congre- 
gational Church,  Denver,  Colorado 229 

The  Person  of  Christ. 

L  The    Reverend    Frederick    Wilkins    Aveling,    M.A.,    B.Sc. 

(London),  Principal  Christ's  College,  Blackheath,  London    239 
n.  .The  Reverend  Charles  F.  Dole,  Pastor  First  Congregational 

Society,  Jamaica  Plain,  Boston,   Massachusetts  .        .        .    249 

The  Atonement.  y/ 

L  The    Reverend    Professor    Franklin   Johnson,    D.D.,    LL.D., 

University   of   Chicago,    Chicago,    Illinois     ....    261 
H.  The  Reverend  James  Muscutt  Hodgson,  M.A.,  D.D.   (Glas- 
gow),   D.Sc.    (Edinburgh),    Principal    of    Congregational 
Theological   Hall,   Edinburgh,   Scotland        .        .        .        .277 
111.  The    Reverend    Henry   W.    Pinkham,    Minister   of   Bethany 

Baptist  Church,  Denver,  Colorado 289 

The  Lord's  Supper. 

L  The  Reverend  W.  T.  Jordan,  Pastor  Calvary  Baptist  Church, 

Denver,  Colorado    •       ,. 303 

n.  The  Reverend  George  H.  Hubbard,  D.D.,  Pastor  Congrega- 
tional   Church,    Enfield,    Massachusetts        .        .        .        .311 

The  Sacrament.  y^^ 

The  Reverend  Robert  Collyer,  D.D.,  Church  of  the  Mes- 
siah,  New   York 3^3 

The  Sacerdotal  Conception  of  Christianity. 

The  Reverend  P.  H. 'Hickman,  B.Sc,  Evergreen,  Colorado    331 


Contents  xi 

Divorce  AND  Remarriage.  ^  page 

I.  The  Right  Reverend  William  Croswell  Doane,  D.D.,  Bishop 

of  the  Diocese  of  Albany,  New  York 345 

11.  The  Honourable  D.  V.'  Burns,  LL.D.,  Justice  of  the  Supreme 

Court,   Denver,    Colorado 359 

Christian  Science. 

I.  The  Reverend  O.  P.  Gifford,  D.D.,  Pastor  Delaware  Avenue 

Baptist  Church,  Buffalo,   New  York 369 

II.  Edward  A,  'Kimball,  C.S.D.,  First  Reader,  Christian  Science 

Church,   Chicago,   Illinois 379 

III.  The  Reverend  W.  H.  P.  Faunce,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  President  of 

Brown  University,   Providence,  Rhode  Island    .        .        .    391 

The  Church  and  Ethical  Leadership. 

The  Reverend  William  E."  Barton,  D.D.,  Pastor  of  First 
Congregational   Church,   Oak  Park,    Illinois    .        .        .    403 

The  Place  of  the  Church  in  Modern  Civilization. 

The    Reverend    Professor    C.   R.*lIenderson,    D.D.,    Uni- 
versity of  Chicago,   Chicago,   Illinois        ....    413 

The  Adjustment  of  the  Church  of  the  Future  to  the  Life  of 
THE  Future.  / 

Charles  F.  Thwing,  D.D.,   LL.D.,   President  of  Western 
Reserve  University,   Cleveland,   Ohio        ....    425 

The  Sabbatic  Principle  in  Modern  Society. 

The  Reverend  Albert  E. ^Waffle,  D.D.,  Pastor  First  Baptist 
Church,  Albion,   New  York 437 

Revivals  in  the  Light  of  the  Present  Day. 

I.  The  Reverend  George  A.   Hilton,   Superintendent   Madison 

Square    Church    House,    New    York 447 

II.  The  Reverend  Samuel  McChord  Crothers,  D.D.,  Pastor  First 

Parish,   Cambridge,   Massachusetts 457 

The  New  Orthodoxy. 

The  Reverend  Daniel  Evans,  Pastor  North  Avenue  Con- 
gregational Church,  Cambridge,  Massachusetts        .        .    465 

The  Trend  of  Theological  Thought  in  England. 

The    Reverend    R.    A. '  Armstrong,    Pastor    Hope    Street 
Church,    Liverpool,    England 481 

The  Modern  Trend  in  Eschatology, 

The  Reverend  Hugh  O.   Rowlands,  D.D.,  Pastor  of  the 
First   Baptist   Church,    Lincoln,    Nebraska        .        .        .493 

Progressive  Liberalism  in  the  Closing  and  the  Opening  Century. 
Charles  W.^Eliot,  LL.D.,  President  of  Harvard  University, 
Cambridge,   Massachusetts 505 


xii  Contents 

Religious  Condition  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Race.  page 

/.  The  Effect  of  Recent  Theological  Discussions  on  the  Upper 
Classes  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Race. 
The  Very  Reverend  F.  W.'  Farrar,  D.D.,  F.R.S.,  Dean  of 

Canterbury    Cathedral,    England 5I9 

//.  The  Religious  Condition  of  the  Working  Men  in  America. 

Samuel  M:  Jones,  Esquire,  Mayor  of  Toledo,  Ohio    .        .     529 
///.  The  Effect  of  Recent  Theological  Discussion  on  the  Lower 
Classes. 
Brigadier  S.  L?  Brengle,  Salvation  Army,  New  York        .    537 


INTRODUCTION 


The  Editor,  The  Rev.  J.  VYRNWY  MORGAN,  D.D. 

MY  object  in  this  work  is  to  put  in  clear  contrast  the  two 
tendencies  in  theology — liberal  and  conservative — and 
to  show  the  status  of  great  questions  at  the  close  of  the  century. 
It  is  apparent  that  the  entire  edifice  of  traditional  religious  con- 
ception has  undergone  a  most  remarkable  transformation.  It 
is  unquestioned  and  unquestionable.  Whether  this  trans- 
formation has  been,  or  still  will  be,  advantageous  to  true  piety 
is  a  question  upon  which  there  is  some  conflict  of  opinion.  The 
following  is  a  review  of  some  of  the  most  prominent  questions, 
as  set  forth  in  this  book : 

THE   DOCTRINE   OF   THE   IMMANENCE   OF   GOD 

The  belief  in  an  Immanent  Divine  Will — that  is,  the  indwell- 
ing of  God  in  nature,  in  social  and  personal  life,  working  out  its 
purposes  in  humanity,  has  practically  revolutionized  the  the- 
ology of  our  fathers.  For  the  old  legal  conception  of  man's 
relation  to  God,  and  the  relation  of  men  to  each  other  in  God, 
it  has  substituted  conceptions  that,  are  organic,  progressive, 
educational  and  vital.  The  regulative  conception  of  this  doc- 
trine of  the  Immanence  of  God  is,  that  the  Infinite  is  in  the 
finite,  and  the  finite  in  the  Infinite.  It  is  increasingly  felt  by 
a  large  constituency  of  the  most  cultured  and  reverent  think- 
ers at  the  close  of  this  century,  that  such  a  conception  is  at  the 
basis  of  Christ's  most  memorable  and  loving  utterances. 

To  the  question :  "  What  thus  becomes  of  human  free- 
dom ?  " ;  the  answer  is,  that  the  Divine  Will  does  not  exclude 
or  overbear  the  human,  neither  does  the  human  exclude  nor 
overbear  the  Divine.     Both  are  concurrent  factors. 

xiii 


xiv  Introduction 

The  chief  difficulty,  however,  in  connection  with  this  doc- 
trine is  the  necessity  of  teaching  or  of  presenting  it  in  such  a 
way  as  to  make  it  clear  to  those  who  are  not  professionally  or 
technically  educated.  When  so  presented,  and  when  shown  in 
its  bearing  upon  education,  politics  and  economics,  together 
with  its  ethical  and  religious  application,  it  may  be  made  a 
potent  factor  in  the  production  of  faith  and  hope. 

What  exact  place  this  doctrine  is  likely  to  occupy  in  the 
religious  thought  of  the  twentieth  century,  it  would  be  difficult 
to  forecast,  both  on  account  of  the  different  views  which  at 
present  exist  concerning  it,  and  the  fact  that  the  doctrine  is,  as 
yet,  in  its  infancy.  This  much,  however,  can  be  safely  said :  it 
has  come  to  be  the  central  doctrine  around  which  all  thought, 
religious  and  secular,  is  at  present  revolving.  Theosophy  and 
Christian  Science  are  but  the  symptoms  of  this  condition  of 
mind,  as  it  exists  to-day  among  multitudes  of  people,  both  in- 
side and  outside  of  the  church. 

EVOLUTION 

This  is  another  aspect  of  theology  which  is  daily  gaining  a 
larger,  more  thoughtful  and  reverent  class  of  students.  The 
subject  is  a  very  large,  and  a  very  difficult  one.  The  new  light 
which  the  hypothesis  of  evolution  has  shed  upon  preconceived 
ideas  of  man's  origin  and  destiny,  as  well  as  God's  method  in 
creation  and  redemption,  is  simply  astonishing.  It  has  given 
us  a  new  geology,  a  new  biology,  a  new  sociology  and  a  new 
psychology;  its  influence  is  felt  in  the  sphere  of  letters;  it 
has  shifted  the  emphasis  from  the  deductive  to  the  inductive 
method  of  literary  study.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  the  hy- 
pothesis of  evolution  has  actually  transformed  the  human 
spirit.  That  so  many  scholars  of  the  class  represented  by 
Dean  Hart  should  refuse  to  walk  humbly  in  the  illumination  of 
this  great  doctrine,  is  not  surprising;  one  is  bound  to  respect 
their  feelings,  their  training,  their  traditions,  and  indeed  their 
intelligence ;  but  it  may  be  stated  that  at  the  close  of  this  cen- 
tury, the  growing  tendency  is  to  accept  Evolution  as  the  best. 


Introduction  xv 

the  most  philosophical,  scientific  and  satisfactory  interpretation 
of  God,  man  and  religion  that  has  yet  been  supplied.  This 
means  that  man  began  his  life,  not  in  a  state  of  large  intelli- 
gence and  innocency,  but  in  a  low,  savage  state,  gradually 
emerging,  under  the  Divine  care  and  discipline,  into  a  state  of 
larger  knowledge  and  better  life,  and  that  the  revelation  of 
God's  character,  purposes  and  saving  grace  moved  along  sim- 
ilar lines.  Thus  the  tendency  is  gradually,  but  surely  to  with- 
draw the  question  of  man's  salvation  out  of  the  region  of  law 
and  sovereignty  and  penalty.  A  belief  in  Evolution  as  the 
method  of  God  in  creation  and  redemption  has  been  shown  to 
be  not  incompatible  with  the  profoundest  religious  faith,  for 
the  facts  of  Evolution  are  susceptible  of  no  other  than  a  theistic 
interpretation.  As  Prof.  Hudson,  the  distinguished  author  of 
"  The  Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena,"  says  in  his  work  on  The 
Divine  Pedigree  of  Man,  **  The  facts  of  organic  and  mental 
evolution  point  clearly  and  unmistakably  to  a  divine  origin  of 
mind  and  life  on  the  earth,  and  that  the  atheistic  theories  of 
agnostic  evolutionists  are  destitute  of  sustaining  facts."  To 
those  who  are  in  difficulties  as  to  how  to  reconcile  their  the- 
ology with  evolution,  we  commend  this  latest  production  of 
Dr.  Hudson,  for  it  presents  a  very  satisfactory  outline  of  the 
fundamental  principles  which  manifest  the  harmony  which 
exists  between  science  and  religion. 

Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  who  is  not  at  all  concerned  to  establish 
traditional  religious  truth,  is  the  only  one  from  whom  we  have 
had  a  comprehensive  statement  of  evolution  in  its  relation  to  all 
departments.  He  says : — "  One  truth  must  ever  grow  clearer 
and  clearer — the  truth  that  there  is  an  Inscrutable  Existence 
manifested  everywhere."  *'  This,"  says  Mr.  Eells,  "  is  the  wit- 
ness of  both  experimental  science  and  the  latest  researches  of 
Psychology.  Beyond  this,  men  of  science  are  precluded  from 
testifying  by  the  limits  of  their  study."  But  the  testimony  they 
bear  is  enough  for  our  purpose.  It  confirms  our  faith  in  God. 
The  application  of  the  testimony  of  psychology  and  experi- 
mental science  to  the  truth  of  the  Personality  or  Divine  Per- 


xvi  Introduction 

sonality  is  ably  dwelt  upon  by  Mr.  Eells  In  his  article  on  the 
Immanence  of  God. 

RETRIBUTION 

The  idea  of  Eternal  Torment,  we  are  told,  is  not  an  original 
article  of  our  Christian  doctrine.  Its  incorporation  into  the 
authoritative  creed  of  the  church  was  accomplished  in  A.  D. 
544,  at  the  instance  of  the  Emperor  Justinian.  This  is  a  ques- 
tion of  considerable  importance. 

Among  the  numerous  replies  which  I  received  to  my  let- 
ters, both  from  England  and  America,  only  one  expressed  will- 
ingness to  go  on  record  on  the  affirmative  side  of  this  important 
question,  and  even  that  distinguished  writer  was  afraid  his 
treatment  of  the  question  would  not  be  conservative  enough 
for  my  purpose.  Whatever  may  be  one's  personal  feeling, 
every  thoughtful  and  candid  student  of  current  thought  has  to 
admit  that  there  is  a  very  remarkable  degree  of  apathy,  or  in- 
tellectual suspense,  concerning  this  doctrine,  both  inside  and 
outside  of  the  pulpit.  Eternal  punishment,  as  preached  by 
Jonathan  Edwards,  is  no  longer  accepted  by  Congregational- 
ists.  It  is  still  retained  by  some  minds  as  a  scholastic  theory, 
and  even  occasionally  preached  from  a  few  pulpits;  but  they 
are  very  few,  and  not  very  influential.  Generally  speaking,  it 
is  looked  upon  as  spiritually  unthinkable — more  so  now  than  at 
any  other  period  during  the  century  now  closing.  There  is  a 
growing  disinclination  to  believe  that  a  soul  can  suffer  forever, 
or  that  a  God,  such  as  the  one  Jesus  Christ  made  known  to  us, 
can  permit  it  to  suffer  forever.  Very  few  are  prepared  dog- 
matically to  affirm  that  the  grace  of  God  ends  for  all,  or  even 
for  any  man,  at  death,  or  that  a  creature  will  be  kept  in  exist- 
ence that  he  may  go  on  in  sin,  eternally.  Such  ideas  are  re- 
garded with  abhorrence  by  an  increasing  number  of  minds 
cultured,  minds  reverent  and  minds  religious,  both  inside  and 
outside  of  the  church.  They  are  looked  upon  as  dishonoring 
to  God,  antagonistic  to  the  instincts  of  justice  in  humanity, 
and  untrue  to  the  Scriptures.  The  chief  causes  of  this  striking 
reaction  are  ably  set  forth  in  this  book  by  Dr.  Dickinson. 


Introduction  xvii 

UNIVERSALISM 

The  exact  question  of  the  destiny  of  all  men  did  not  come  up 
among  Christians  at  the  very  beginning.  Explicit  Universal- 
ism  was  not  taught  in  the  church  until  the  third  century,  though 
implicit  universalism  was  taught  much  earlier.  The  univer- 
salist  denomination  dates  from  the  preaching  of  John  Murray, 
who  came  to  the  United  States  from  London,  England,  in  the 
year  1770;  a  compact  and  elaborate  organization  being  effected 
in  the  year  1870.  But  like  Unitarianism,  it  is  still  one  of  the 
small  denominations. 

The  progress  of  the  Universalist  sentiment,  and  especially  of 
the  Universalist  Church,  during  this  century,  has  been  much 
greater  in  America  than  in  England.  Referring  to  the  Bien- 
nial Session  of  the  Universalist  General  Convention  at  Boston, 
October  25,  1899,  the  Outlook  observed: — 

"  One  sees  a  significant  contrast  between  the  obloquy  and 
persecution  visited  upon  the  Rev.  John  Murray,  when  he  intro- 
duced Universalism  at  Gloucester,  Massachusetts,  a  century 
ago,  and  the  fraternal  greeting  given  at  Boston  to  the  Inter- 
national Meeting." 

Since  that  time,  the  Universalists  have  built  seven  hundred 
and  seventy-six  churches.  In  1898,  they  had  a  membership  of 
46,522  and  760  settled  pastors ;  though  at  the  close  of  1899,  the 
Universalists  of  America  could  claim  only  44,746  members  as 
against  46,522  for  the  previous  year,  a  decrease  of  1,776. 
However,  there  are  but  few  religious  bodies  in  America  that 
can  claim  an  increase  of  membership  at  the  latter  end  of  this 
century.  In  fact,  religious  organizations  have  been  losing 
ground  for  some  years  throughout  the  whole  of  the  United 
States.  The  increase  in  membership  in  America  during  the 
year  1899  was  about  one  per  cent.;  not  a  very  vigorous 
growth.  The  relative  decline  of  Presbyterianism  during  the 
last  five  years,  is  well  known,  though  last  year  they  report 
an  increase  in  the  percentage  of  growth.  The  Methodist 
Episcopal   Church   is  busy   seeking  a   remedy   for   declining 


xviii  Introduction 

membership.  The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  with  three 
million  communicants  added  only  seven  thousand  to  its  mem- 
bership during  the  year  1899.  In  addition  to  this  it  shows  a 
decline  of  twenty-eight  thousand,  five  hundred  and  ninety-five 
(28,595)  i^  those  candidates  known  as  probationers.  This  de- 
cline is  all  the  more  ominous  when  we  take  into  consideration 
the  fact  that  the  decline  takes  place  in  those  territories  where 
the  population  is  actually  increasing.  The  Unitarians  made 
no  gain,  while  the  Universalists  fell  off  three  per  cent.  Dr. 
Atwood  accounts  for  this  diminished  rate  of  increase  in  these 
two  bodies,  firstly,  by  the  fact  of  the  growth  of  Universalism 
and  Unitarianism  in  evangelical  communions,  and,  secondly, 
by  the  disposition  in  these  churches  to  make  Universalists  and 
Unitarians  comfortable  in  their  fellowship.  The  first  explana- 
tion is  undoubtedly  true,  but  the  second  is  true  only  in  part,  and 
is  unsatisfactory.  Dr.  Atwood  says,  "  The  more  converts  (to 
Universalism)  the  fewer  the  followers."  Such  a  statement 
will  not  stand  the  test  of  denominational  history.  Christian 
Science  can  claim  more  adherents  and  sympathizers  among 
religious  bodies  than  any  other  sect,  and  yet  it  can  claim  a 
larger  percentage  of  organic  growth  than  any  other  denomina- 
tion— being  fourteen  per  cent,  during  1899.  The  diminished 
rate  of  increase  among  Unitarians  and  Universalists  has  been 
largely  due  to  the  hitherto  negative  character  of  their  creed  and 
teaching.  People  are  more  anxious  to  know  what  to  believe 
tiian  what  not  to  believe,  though  the  Universalist  teaching  is 
not  so  negative  as  it  formerly  was,  or  is  now  generally  sup- 
posed. This  is  also  true  of  Unitarianism.  But  the  chief 
explanation  of  the  diminished  rate  of  increase  among  the 
Universalists  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  its  distin- 
guishing tenet  is  generally  regarded  as  being  beyond  the 
range  of  experimental  knowledge.  "  In  itself  ",  said  the  Duke 
of  Argyle,  "  it  is  most  fascinating — would  God  it  were  true." 
However,  the  growth  of  Christian  thought  and  sentiment  can- 
not be  accurately  gauged  by  the  growth  of  Christian  churches 
or  denominations,   for  the  largest  proportion  of  growth   in 


Introduction  xix 

Christian  sentiment  and  thought  has  been,  during  this  century, 
outside  of  the  nominal  church,  and  the  twentieth  century  is 
hkely  to  witness  a  larger  growth  in  the  same  direction.  It  is 
no  longer  possible  to  persuade  men  to  believe  that  they  cannot 
lead  Christian  lives,  or  that  they  cannot  be  saved  unless  they 
join  a  church.  Indeed,  some  natures  can  lead  better  lives  out- 
side of  the  church  than  in  it.  It  is  contended,  however,  that 
this  decrease  in  church  membership  must  not  be  taken  as  a  sign 
of  the  ultimate  decay  or  extinction  of  the  organic  church.  Our 
industrial  and  economic  conditions,  which  produce  divisions 
among  various  classes,  together  with  the  suspense  of  judgment 
upon  religious  questions  arising  from  our  theological  contro- 
versies, account  for  the  present  state  of  things.  As  the  spirit 
of  Christ  will  enable  men  to  adjust  these  inequalities,  and  re- 
move these  difficulties,  the  social  impulse  towards  meeting  to- 
gether for  service  and  praise  will,  we  are  told,  bring  large  ac- 
cessions to  the  organic  church. 

The  great  German  historian,  Friedrich  Nippold,  passed  this 
judgment  upon  the  Church : — '*  The  history  of  the  church  in 
the  nineteenth  century  is  less  than  ever  before  synonymous 
with  the  history  of  Christianity."  Neither  can  the  progress  of 
the  Universalist  sentiment  be  accurately  gauged  by  the  num- 
ber of  churches  or  pastors.  The  sentiment  has  spread  beyond 
the  confines  of  the  nominal  Universalist  Church,  and  while  a 
large  number  of  Christian  pastors  and  believers  do  not  feel 
disposed  to  be  dogmatic,  either  for  or  against  Universalism, 
there  is  a  growing  spirit  of  hope,  that  somehow  God,  in 
his  wonderful  Providence,  may  see  a  way  to  bring  all  men 
to  himself.  There  is  a  large  class  of  theologians,  who,  while 
unwilling  to  believe  in  Eternal  Punishment,  cannot  accept 
Universalism;  these  are  inevitably  driven  into  the  school  of 
*'  Conditional  Immortality."  Those  who  reject  the  Universal- 
ist sentiment  reject  it  because  with  them  the  ultimate  fact  in 
human  life  is  the  freedom  of  the  human  will,  and  they  main- 
tain the  power  of  the  will  to  stand  out  forever.  Dr.  Atwood 
says  that  he  is  a  Universalist  because  God  is.     "  God  made 


XX  Introduction 

everything  for  goodness,  and  purposes  that  goodness  shall  tri- 
umph. Every  soul  has  in  itself  the  evidence  of  the  end  for 
which  it  is  made,  and  the  destiny  of  that  soul  is  to  ally  itself 
with  its  author  and  to  co-operate  with  him  in  fulfilling  the 
great  end  of  its  existence."  The  crucial  question  seems  to  be, 
how  to  reconcile  this  theory  with  the  supposed  freedom  of  the 
human  will,  for  each  man's  destiny,  it  is  maintained,  is  and 
ever  will  be,  in  his  own  hands,  and  God  cannot  force  man  to 
choose  the  good  and  renounce  the  evil — at  least  while  man 
continues  to  be  a  free  moral  agent.  So  the  great  problem  re- 
mains, "  Can  the  most  merciful  God  save  all  men?" 

The  main  value  of  Dr.  Beach's  contribution  is  to  show  the 
trend  of  thought  among  Congregationalists,  which  is  a  very 
important  consideration.  He  does  not  dogmatize,  for  there 
is  much  both  in  Scripture  and  in  Nature  that  looks  the  other 
way.  "  The  solution  of  the  problem,"  says  Dr.  Beach,  "  lies 
in  the  ultimate  capacity  of  man  to  respond  to  the  Divine  Treat- 
ment," so  that  at  the  close  of  this  century,  the  question  of  how 
extensive  redemption  will  be,  both  as  to  duration  and  number, 
is  looked  upon  as  being  beyond  the  range  of  experimental 
knowledge. 

Dr.  Rowlands  deprecates  intolerant  dogmatism  upon  the 
question  of  the  fate  of  the  impenitent,  for  the  reason  that  in 
every  age  men  profound  in  the  history  of  Christian  Dogmatics, 
men  whose  piety  was  unquestioned,  differed  in  their  deductions 
and  conclusions.  Moody  did  not  preach  endless  torment.  Dr. 
Rowlands  would  not  make  it  a  test  for  Church  membership, 
and  under  certain  conditions,  not  even  a  test  for  ordination  to 
the  Christian  ministry  or  appointment  to  the  missionary  field. 
The  question  might  be  put  here:  ought  we  to  make  belief  in 
certain  theories  of  the  Atonement,  or  of  Inspiration,  or  of  the 
Infallibility  of  the  Bible,  and  especially  of  the  nature  and 
method  of  Revelation,  a  condition  of  Christian  fellowship  or  of 
Church  membership  or  of  ordination  to  the  ministry?  The 
question  of  the  fate  of  the  impenitent  is  not  the  only  question 
upon  which  the  revelations  of  the  Scriptures  are  not  so  con- 


Introduction  xxi 

elusive  as  to  place  them  beyond  controversy.  President  Eliot 
of  Harvard  observes  that  this  age  is  the  least  presumptuous  of 
the  ages.  This  is  well  said.  This  modesty  is  likely  to  grow 
upon  us.  The  old  theologians  thought  they  perfectly  under- 
stood God's  justice  and  what  that  justice  demanded.  But  as 
Dr.  Eliot  says,  the  jurists  and  legislators  of  to-day  are  not  at 
all  sure  that  they  understand  what  human  justice  ought  to  be. 
There  is  reason  for  greater  tolerance  especially  concerning 
those  problems  upon  which  no  definite,  or  conclusive  testimony, 
has  been  left  us  by  the  prophets  and  apostles,  not  even  by  Christ 
Himself. 

I  have  given  a  good  deal  of  space  to  this  subject  for  the 
reason  that,  notwithstanding  the  hue  and  cry  over  the  gross 
materialism  of  the  present  day,  there  never  was  an  age  when 
so  many  millions  were  so  much  interested  in  the  problem  of 
man's  destiny. 

CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 

The  growth  of  Christian  Science  stands  as  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  facts  of  the  nineteenth  Century.  In  1876,  a  Chris- 
tian Scientist  Association  was  founded  in  Boston;  three  years 
later  it  was  incorporated  as  a  church,  with  twenty-six  mem- 
bers. Now  it  has  a  membership  of  fourteen  hundred,  and  ten 
thousand  non-resident  members.  In  Canada  and  the  United 
States  they  have  a  membership  of  three  hundred  thousand. 
Among  them  are  men  and  women  of  unquestionable  piety,  of 
good  social  standing  and  considerable  intellectual  attainment. 
Mrs.  Eddy's  book  has  gone  through  one  hundred  and  sixty 
editions;  they  have  two  thousand  healers,  and  it  is  conceded 
that  they  have  healed  thousands.  The  quantity  of  literature 
distributed  by  them  is  simply  amazing,  and  their  generosity 
is  such  as  to  excite  the  envy  of  all  churches.  But  the  Chris- 
tian Science  spirit  has  gone  beyond  the  confines  of  Christian 
Science  Churches.  They  have  sympathizers  everywhere,  so 
numerous  and  so  strong,  that  but  very  few  pastors  deem  it  wise 


xxii  Introduction 

or  prudent,  for  their  own  sakes  and  the  peace  of  the  Church, 
to  stand  up  and  denounce  Christian  Science  theories  and  prac- 
tices. There  are  cases  on  record  which  prove  that  the  men  who 
have  done  that  have  suffered. 

What  is  the  secret  of  the  growth  of  Christian  Science? 
Why  is  it  that  every  convert  to  that  faith  immediately  be- 
comes a  zealous  propagandist?  I  have  not  yet  seen  a  satis- 
factory answer  to  these  questions.  Like  the  Salvation  Army, 
it  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  movements  since  the  Apostolic 
Age,  and  its  adherents  are  increasing  both  in  number  and  in 
zeal,  not  only  in  America,  but  in  Canada,  England,  China, 
France,  Italy  and  Germany.  What  is  the  secret  of  this  suc- 
cess ?  To  my  thinking  Christian  Science  is  but  a  symptom  of 
a  condition  of  mind  which  so  largely  exists  to-day.  What  is 
that  condition?  It  is  the  same  condition  which  made  theos- 
ophy  possible; — It  is  the  growing  belief  in  the  indwelling  of 
God  in  nature,  in  man,  in  human  society  and  in  all  life.  Chris- 
tian Science  revolves  around  the  great  central  doctrine  of  the 
immanence  of  God.  The  miracle  of  Immanuel  is  a  continuous 
one,  and  is  moving  on  to  its  grand  culmination,  as  depicted  in 
the  book  of  Revelation. 

Then,  in  estimating  the  growth  of  Christian  Science,  we 
must  take  into  consideration  the  great  passion  for  health 
among  the  people,  combined  with  a  growing  revulsion  of  feel- 
ing against  the  ordinary  medical  practitioner.  This  is  no  re- 
flection upon  those  members  of  the  medical  fraternity  whose 
skill  and  discretion  entitle  them  to  the  respect  and  confidence 
of  the  world.  But  such  medical  aid  is  accessible  to  only  a 
limited  class.  It  is  highly  probable  that  in  the  early  years  of 
the  incoming  century,  evangelical  churches  will  claim  that  the 
healing  genius  has  always  been  in  the  Church  from  the  be- 
ginning, and  will  seek  to  put  it  to  greater  use,  and  will  also 
seek  to  emphasize  the  place  of  the  mind  in  the  making  of  both 
health  and  morality. 

But  how  long  will  our  country  continue  to  cheat  the  criminal 
law  by  accepting  the  Christian  Scientists'  defense  of  some  of 


Introduction  xxiii 

their  methods  as  the  exercise  of  a  religious  right?  No  one 
questions  their  right  to  worship  in  any  way  they  think  fit,  but 
one  questions  their  moral  and  legal  right  to  refuse  medical  aid 
to  children  suffering  and  dying  from  pneumonia  and  other 
diseases.  This  intellectual  aristocracy  has  absolutely  elimi- 
nated the  term  ''sympathy"  from  its  vocabulary.  It  has  done 
likewise  with  the  word  *'  repentance  ".  It  is  often  said  that 
"  Christian  Science  "  is  neither  Christian  nor  Scientific.  How- 
ever, Christendom  owes  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  Christian 
Science  for  the  prominence  it  has  given  to  the  great  and  im- 
portant doctrine  of  the  Immanence  of  God. 

Dr.  Faunce  declares  this  to  be  one  of  the  strong  points  of 
Christian  Science — its  clear  realization  of  the  immanence  of 
God.  "  The  average  Christian  Church,"  he  says,  "  is  still  shy 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit  leaving  that  to  Northfield 
and  Keswick,  and  believes  only  in  a  far-away  Deity  who  oc- 
casionally has  interfered  with  this  world  to  work  a  miracle. 
The  average  Christian  Church  believes  in  an  inspiration  which 
ceased  about  lOO  A.  D.,  and  in  an  interpretation  of  the  Bible 
which  makes  it  the  story  of  what  was,  but  no  longer  is."  He 
bears  witness  to  the  personal  ability  and  high-mindedness  of 
many  Christian  Scientists,  and  he  concedes  that  they  have  pro- 
duced large  results  in  bodily  healing  but  with  equal  frankness 
he  points  out  the  fallacy  and  perils  of  Christian  Science.  Its 
philosophy,  he  says,  is  a  rare  collection  of  shreds  and  patches; 
many  notions  inconsistently  united.  While  Christian  Science 
has  gotten  hold  of  a  great  truth,  still  as  a  system  it  is,  he  con- 
tends, perilous  to  moral  life.  Its  use  of  the  Bible  is  unwar- 
ranted. It  discredits  all  the  prophets  and  apostles  and  makes 
the  life  and  death  of  Christ  farcical.  It  robs  man  of  real  free- 
dom and  responsibility.  It  dissolves  God  into  a  misty,  un- 
conscious abstraction.  It  confuses  moral  distinctions  through 
the  denial  of  the  reality  of  evil,  and  he  suggests  that  Christian 
Science  is  the  path-way  to  atheism.  "  Beloved,  believe  not 
every  spirit,  but  try  the  spirits  whether  they  are  of  God." 


xxiv  Introduction 

REVIVALS 

The  thing  that  people  generally  understand  the  word  "  Re- 
vival "  to  signify  was  developed  in  America,  but  was  never 
successfully  transplanted  to  any  other  country.  The  preach- 
ing of  Wesley  and  Whitefield,  which  produced  such  glorious 
and  permanent  effects  in  England  and  America,  should  not  be 
classed  with  ordinary  revivals.  Neither  should  the  preaching 
and  the  methods  of  Moody  and  Sankey.  Though  there  was  a 
strong  undercurrent  of  prejudice  in  England  against  their 
method,  one  cannot  mention  their  names  without  deep  and 
sacred  emotion,  for  they  stirred  England  as  it  had  not  been 
stirred  since  the  days  of  Wesley  and  Whitefield.  They  were 
no  professional  peripatetic  revivalists,  but  men  of  God,  who 
accomplished  work  of  immense  benefit  to  general  morality, 
Biblical  study,  and  Christianity  in  general. 

Among  the  objections  to  revivals  noted  by  Dr.  Crothers,  and 
which,  it  is  alleged,  have  brought  popular  revivals  into  dis- 
repute, are  the  following:  The  tendency  of  evangelists  to 
sneer  at  culture,  and  to  denounce  learning;  also  their  failure 
to  realize  the  fact  that  there  might  be  differences  of  opinion 
concerning  religious  work  and  religious  topics  among  genuine 
Christians. 

Dr.  Crothers  calls  attention  to  the  manner  in  which  Evan- 
gelists discourage  the  piety  of  the  intellect,  or  love  of  truth — 
doctrinal  truth.  The  difference  between  the  revivalist  and  the 
scientific  man  in  this  respect  is  very  striking.  The  scientific 
man  considers  and  weighs  his  statements,  while  the  revivalist 
is  much  more  concerned  in  impressing  his  audience  than  in 
emphasizing  and  elucidating  the  truth.  While  the  evangelist 
never  fails  to  expatiate  upon  the  justice  of  God,  and  how  that 
justice  must  be  satisfied,  very  little,  if  anything,  is  said  re- 
specting the  necessity  of  justice  between  man  and  man.  Dr. 
Crothers  calls  attention  to  the  failure  of  "  evangelists "  to 
discriminate  between  intellectual  difference  and  moral  ob- 
liquity. The  chief  objection  however,  urged  against  revivals 
is  the  lack  of  spiritual  elevation.    In  seeking  to  popularize  re- 


Introduction  xxv 

ligion,  many  "  evangelists "  succeed  only  in  vulgarizing  it ; 
while  creating  religious  excitement  they  fail  to  create  a  re- 
ligious attitude. 

Account  must  also  be  taken  of  the  artificial  life  which  is 
alleged  to  be  the  result  of  the  emotional  excitement  consequent 
upon  a  revival  season ;  and  not  least,  the  reprehensible  methods 
resorted  to  by  some  revivalists,  in  order  to  stimulate  religious 
excitement,  mainly  for  the  purpose  of  raising  large  sums  of 
money.  There  is  a  growing  disposition  to  regard  the  ordinary 
revival  meeting  as  destructive  of  modesty,  as  well  as  injurious 
to  the  nervous  system.  Unquestionably,  these  excesses  have 
brought  revivals  into  disrepute  among  a  large  class  of  devout, 
discriminating,  and  even  enthusiastic  Christians.  That  gen- 
uine revivals  have  been  a  source  of  good,  cannot  be  doubted. 
In  proof  of  this  we  need  only  mention  the  fact  that  such  in- 
fluential denominations  as  the  Baptist,  Methodist  and  in  some 
sections  the  Presbyterians  have  been  built  upon  the  re- 
sults of  revivals.  But  why  is  it  that  we  have  so  few  con- 
versions at  our  modern  Evangelistic  Services?  What  is  the 
cause  that  so  many  distinguished  Evangelists  have  retired  from 
the  field?  Major  Hilton,  a  sane  and  a  conservative  Evangelist 
declared  it  as  his  belief  that  this  decline  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  "  Holy  Spirit  "  is  withdrawing  from  the  churches.  This  is 
a  serious  statement,  especially  coming  from  one  who  has  had 
such  wide  experience,  a  man  of  undoubted  piety  and  acknowl- 
edged ability.  One  wonders  why  the  Spirit  of  God  should 
withdraw  from  a  sphere  where,  and  at  a  time  when,  it  is  so 
much  needed. 

Major  Hilton  says  that  the  very  nature  and  environment 
of  man  demands  seasons  of  revival,  and  that  something  more 
than  ordinary  is  necessary  to  head  off  the  on-rushing  tide  of 
humanity,  and  to  bring  it  to  a  realization  of  spiritual  matters. 
He  does  not  plead  for  any  special  method,  for  the  method  is 
a  secondary  matter.  Major  Hilton  very  properly  laments  the 
fact  that  the  Church  has  not  yet  recognized  that  something 
is  wrong  with  the  present  church  method  for  winning  souls, 


xxvi  Introduction 

and  he  calls  attention  to  the  shameful  ignorance  concerning  the 
Bible  prevailing  to-day  among  church  members.  The  reason 
why  there  are  so  few  converts  during  seasons  of  revival  to-day, 
Major  Hilton  says,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Church  is  not 
equipped  for  this  work,  and  also  that  ministers  during  their 
seminary  course  receive  no  instruction  in  this  department  of 
ministerial  life.  Major  Hilton  is  discouraged  over  the  out- 
look for  revivals ;  present  indications  are  not  promising,  and  it 
is  difficult  to  see  what  place  revivals  will  occupy  in  the  future 
life  of  the  Church. 

THE  ATONEMENT 

What  the  Atonement  is  or  means ;  why  the  Atonement  was 
made;  how  are  we  to  believe  in  it — are  problems  that  have 
agitated  men's  minds  for  ages,  and  yet  the  agitation  continues. 
It  is  calculated  that  there  are  about  fifteen  or  more  theories  on 
this  subject.  But  in  all  these  discussions,  it  is  clear  that  Chris- 
tendom is  coming  out  and  on  to  broader  and  higher  outlooks 
upon  the  question  of  Atonement.  The  old  ransom  theory,  or 
negotiations  with  Satan  on  the  part  of  Christ,  has  been  dis- 
carded as  a  hideous  travesty.  Likewise,  the  theory  of  negotia- 
tions with  God  has  been  repudiated  by  the  majority  of  Chris- 
tendom. These  conceptions  may  be  attributed  to  a  misuse, 
or  an  over-emphasis,  of  certain  portions  of  Scripture;  it  may 
also  be  attributed  to  the  mental  attitude  of  the  race  during 
the  periods  when  they  were  conceived.  That  such  theories, 
revolting  as  they  may  appear,  did  bring  comfort  to  those  who 
held  them,  cannot  be  doubted,  but  they  also  ministered  to 
much  popular  error,  and  they  have  now  yielded  to  simpler, 
profounder,  and  more  vital  conceptions.  The  blasphemy  of 
representing  God  the  Father  as  all  wrathful,  and  God  the  Son 
as  all  mercy,  is  no  longer  preached.  Dean  Farrar  says :  "  Men 
now  accept  no  violent  disintegration  of  the  Persons  of  the 
Trinity  in  man's  salvation."  Men  still  believe  that  God  for- 
gives sin,  not  for  Christ's  sake,  but  in  and  through  Christ. 
Creeds,  with  their  scholastic  phrases  and  damnatory  clauses. 


Introduction  xxvii 

have  not  added  much  to  faith,  and  have  alienated  multitudes 
from  the  Church  and  religion. 

The  theory  of  absolute  satisfaction,  which  at  length  fol- 
lowed upon  Anselm's  effort  in  the  eleventh  century  to  relate 
God's  work  in  Christ  to  his  holiness  and  high  purposes,  and 
the  theory  of  satisfaction  propounded  by  Grotius  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  are  less  and  less  preached,  and  are  abandoned 
by  the  great  majority  of  able  and  devout  men.  The  theory  of 
propitiation,  which  has  met  with  wide  acceptance,  is  also  pass- 
ing out  of  theology.  Such  a  conception  of  the  Atonement  is 
now  regarded  as  inconsistent  with  the  whole  trend  of  Apos- 
tolic teaching. 

The  substitutional  theory,  which  in  its  essential  principle  is 
difficult  of  discrimination  from  those  already  mentioned,  is  a 
combination  of  the  views'  of  the  school  which  followed  upon 
Anselm,  and  of  the  Grotian  school,  and  still  largely  prevails 
in  Protestant  Theology.  It  may  be  safely  stated  that  the  ma- 
jority of  Christian  believers  throughout  Christendom  still  be- 
lieve in  this  theory.  It  may  also  be  stated  that  the  substitu- 
tional theory  no  longer  holds  the  same  place  as  formerly  in 
Protestant  Theology.  An  increasing  number  of  Christian  be- 
lievers, as  well  as  of  our  theologians,  regard,  as  unscriptural 
and  purely  Pagan,  the  theory  that  the  justice  of  God  must  be 
satisfied  by  the  infliction  of  punishment.  The  actual  trans- 
ference of  the  penalties  of  sin  and  of  the  Divine  displeasure 
involved  in  the  substitutional  theory  is  regarded  more  and 
more  as  Dr.  Hodgson  puts  it,  "  as  utterly  repugnant  to  the 
primary  instincts  of  the  moral  sense,  and  really  subversive  of 
the  very  foundations  of  moral  order."  Dr.  Franklin  Johnson 
concedes  that  those  who  hold  to  the  substitution  of  Christ  do 
not  regard  as  final  or  satisfactory  any  of  the  existing  theories 
of  the  substitution.  There  is  a  growing  feeling  that  these 
theories  contain  glimpses — only  glimpses — of  a  truth  larger 
than  all.  So  that,  while  the  majority  of  Christian  believers 
and  thinkers  still  accept  the  substitution  of  Christ  as  a  fact, 
they  accept  it  without  a  theory,  and  though  it  is  not  absolutely 


xxviii  Introduction 

essential  that  we  should  have  a  theory,  still  Christian  believers 
will  never  cease  to  search  for  an  adequate  one. 

As  to  the  moral  influence  theory,  while  it  has  considerable 
acceptance  in  some  quarters,  and  while  it  is  recognized  as  true 
as  tar  as  it  goes,  the  trend  of  thought  at  this  period  seems  to 
regard  this  theory  as  unsatisfactory,  inasmuch  as  it  does  not 
seem  to  touch  the  vital  spot.  Dr.  Franklin  Johnson  maintains 
that  it  is  far  too  narrowly  circumscribed.  Such  a  theory,  we 
are  told,  is  not  conducive  to  profound  thought;  and,  so  far  as 
its  effects  are  known,  it  tends  to  kill  emotion.  In  conclusion, 
the  opponents  of  the  moral  influence  theory  tell  us  that  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  the  preaching  of  such  a  theory  can  reach 
or  influence  the  human  will,  and,  if  it  cannot  reach  the  will, 
it  certainly  cannot  transform  the  life. 

In  answer  to  all  this  it  may  be  said  that  the  opponents  of  the 
moral  influence  theory  do  not  seem  to  appreciate  its  true  bear- 
ings. Bushnell  was  one  of  the  great  exponents  of  this  theory 
and  no  preacher  of  this  Century  has  been  more  vital.  The 
same  is  true  of  those  who  were  influenced  by  his  thought. 

The  Rev.  W.  H.  Pinkham  observes :  "  A  more  advanced 
stage  of  spiritual  progress  requires  a  new  theology."  Mr. 
Pinkham's  contribution  is  especially  interesting  from  the  fact 
that  he  was  recently  excommunicated  for  heresy.  The  editor 
is  glad  to  bear  testimony  to  Mr.  Pinkham  as  a  man  of  deep 
spiritual  feeling.  A  broader  and  a  better  spirit,  we  are  told, 
has  taken  possession  of  the  churches ;  that  is  true ;  but  they  are 
still  a  long  way  off  from  the  ideal  of  Christ.  In  Macaulay's 
essays  (Hampden)  the  writer  says:  *' It  required  no  great 
sagacity  to  perceive  the  inconsistency  and  dishonesty  of  men 
who,  dissenting  from  almost  all  Christendom  would  suffer  no 
one  to  dissent  from  themselves;  who  demanded  freedom  of 
conscience,  yet  refused  to  grant  it ;  who  execrated  persecution, 
yet  persecuted;  who  urged  reason  against  authority  of  one 
opponent  and  authority  against  the  reasons  of  another." 

Mr.  Pinkham  contends  that  if  Christ  bore  the  penalty  of 
human  sin,  then  there  can  be  no  room  for  repentance.     He 


Introduction  xxix 

claims  that  the  history  of  Christ  shows  not  what  we  ought  to 
suffer,  but  what  sin  really  is — how  deep  the  depravity  of  the 
human  heart.  The  vicarious  death  of  Christ  was  not  a  special 
or  a  unique  act,  as  the  old  theologians  have  claimed,  but  an  ex- 
ample— and  the  supreme  example  of  a  universal  law. 

THE  HIGHER  CRITICISM 

It  is  yet  too  soon  to  gauge  accurately  the  full  effect  of 
Higher  Criticism  upon  our  theology  and  preaching,  for  Higher 
Criticism  has  only  just  entered  upon  its  constructive  stage. 
This  much,  however,  may  be  said,  that  Higher  Criticism  is  fast 
overcoming  the  influence  of  ultra-conservative  theologians 
who  have  claimed  the  exemption  of  the  canonical  writings 
from  literary  and  historical  criticism.  It  has  succeeded  in  in- 
fusing a  more  scientific  spirit  into  theological  inquiry.  It  has 
also  established  for  itself  a  reputation  for  wide  scholarship  and 
integrity  of  purpose.  The  position  of  Higher  Criticism  is  that 
some  of  the  books  of  the  Scriptures  are  composite  in  structure ; 
that  some  were  written  in  times  much  later  than  the  authors 
whose  names  they  bear;  that  their  incidental  utterances  are 
not  necessarily  infallible,  and  that  the  Old  Testament  teaching 
cannot  be  separated  from  its  historical  environment,  and  is 
ethical  and  spiritual  rather  than  scientific — the  method  of 
parable  and  allegory  being  sometimes  resorted  to.  Higher 
Criticism,  while  presupposing  inspiration,  seeks  to  determine 
the  conditions  under  which  it  operates ;  but  it  contends  that  in- 
spiration does  not  exclude  the  human  element  in  the  imperfect 
mediums  by  which  it  has  been  communicated.  The  question 
whether  the  Church  created  the  Bible,  or  the  Bible  created  the 
Church,  has  not  a  very  essential  bearing  upon  the  conclusions 
of  Higher  Criticism.  In  all  the  Old  Testament  we  are  told 
not  a  word  is  said  about  itself  as  an  inspired  book,  or  as 
being  a  collection  of  inspired  books.  There  is  only  one  place 
where  the  New  Testament  speaks  of  itself  as  inspired,  and,  even 
there,  the  direct  implication  is  that  all  scripture  is  not  inspired ; 
that  is,  that  many  of  the  things  recorded  in  the  Bible  were 


XXX  Introduction 

natural,  and  not  supernatural.  Therefore,  the  Bible  is  in  some 
respects  a  book,  not  of  absolute,  but  of  relative  truth.  It  is 
adapted  to  certain  men,  certain  periods  and  certain  economies, 
while  having  at  bottom  immense  moral  weight  for  all  times. 
Dr.  McConnell  defines  the  Bible  as  the  literature  of  a  move- 
ment. The  movement  produced  the  literature  and  not  con- 
versely. The  movement  is  the  master,  and  the  book  is  the 
servant.  The  impulse  of  the  spirit  of  Holiness  is  moral,  not 
intellectual.  The  only  authority  which  can  decide  which  men, 
and  what  writings,  have  been  inspired  is  the  Christian  Con- 
sciousness. As  the  Church  lived  for  Centuries  without  the 
Bible,  so  the  Church  would  not  perish  if  the  Bible  were  lost. 
The  capacity  to  inspire  is  the  only  sufficient  evidence  of  in- 
spiration. 

Furthermore,  Higher  Criticism  maintains  that  creeds  and 
theories  should  not  be  founded  on  isolated  texts  and  misap- 
plied metaphors ;  that  the  Bible  must  be  interpreted  as  a  whole, 
and  interpreted  in  the  light  of  our  most  advanced  knowledge. 
Thus,  and  thus  only,  we  are  told,  can  reverence  for  the  Bible 
be  increased,  and  men  of  all  classes  be  brought  to  realize  the 
true  worth  of  the  Bible  as  the  highest  literary  revelation  of 
God  ever  made  to  man.  But  there  is  this  criticism  that  might 
be  passed;  while  the  ultra-conservative  theologians  are  guilty 
of  over-using  and  of  misusing  isolated  texts  to  buttress  their 
theories,  the  liberals  seldom,  if  ever,  quote  the  Bible  at  all. 

Higher  Criticism  claims  that  the  New  Testament  knows 
nothing  of  systematic  dogma;  that  infallibility  can  never  be 
the  quality  of  any  known  doctrine;  that  the  very  nature  of 
Christianity  makes  it  impossible  for  one  generation  of  men  to 
ao  formulate  the  truths  of  the  Christian  faith  as  to  make  them 
applicable  to,  or  binding  upon,  another  generation  blessed  with 
a  larger  mind  and  heart. 

According  to  the  famous  formula  of  Athanasius's  creed,  in- 
tellectual acquiescence  in  what  he  at  that  period  regarded  as 
the  truth  constituted  the  way  to  Heaven,  and  the  basis  of  sal- 
vation was  submission  to  the  authority  of  the  Church.     To 


Introduction  xxxi 

these  assumptions,  Higher  Criticism  ascribes  the  aHenation 
of  so  many  thinking  men  from  any  outward  relationship  with 
Christianity.  Some  of  them,  Hke  Huxley,  have  thus  been 
driven  into  the  region  of  scepticism,  while  others  have  been 
forced  into  the  region  of  atheism. 

Higher  Criticism  contends  that  some  of  the  Old  Testament 
books,  such  as  Esther  and  Jonah,  must  not  be  taken  as  narra- 
tives of  fact,  and  that  the  allegorical  element  plays  a  very 
prominent  part  in  the  Book  of  Genesis.  Not  that  Higher 
Criticism  claims  to  have  been  free  from  error,  but  as  Dean 
Church  said :  ''  Those  who  make  no  mistakes  make  nothing." 
This  is  the  position  of  the  Higher  Criticism  and  in  this  con- 
nection it  should  be  noted  that  the  more  reasonable  section 
of  our  modern  conservative  theologians,  after  much  hesitation, 
have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  interests  of  truth,  of  the 
Bible  and  of  religion  at  large,  necessitate  the  endorsement  of 
the  confession  made  by  Mr.  Moody,  when  he  said:  ''  It  is  not 
the  authorship  of  the  book  that  matters,  but  the  contents." 
They  now  concede  that  the  real  question  is,  not  whether  the 
Prophets  wrote  the  books  which  are  called  by  their  names,  but 
whether  they  uttered  the  prophecies  which  have  been  recorded 
in  these  books ;  and  that  the  whole  value  of  the  Pentateuch  no 
longer  stands  or  falls  with  its  Mosaic  or  non-Mosaic  author- 
ship. Prof.  M.  O.  Smith  of  Nashotah  in  his  paper  takes 
this  ground,  and  it  is  the  preliminary  step  towards  the  removal 
of  the  distractions  which  prevail  at  present  in  this  field. 

The  most  discouraging  and  lamentable  feature  in  connection 
with  these  controversies  is  the  uncharitable  and  unchristlike 
spirit  in  which  many  ultra-conservatives  have  received  these 
criticisms.  Why  need  we  be  afraid  of  the  light  ?  Christianity 
can  stand  the  test  of  light  from  whatever  quarter  it  may  come. 
It  has  stood  it  for  two  thousand  years.  The  truth  is  like  a 
torch;  the  more  you  shake  it,  the  more  it  blazes  and  shines. 
It  is  true,  we  have  lost  many  darling  phrases,  and  many  of  the 
Old  Testament  books  have  lost  their  supposed  historical  value, 
and  our  theories  of  inspiration  have  undergone  considerable 


xxxii  Introduction 

changes,  and  many  of  the  books  are  no  longer  ascribed  to  the 
authors  whose  names  they  bear.  It  has  been  shown  that  there 
are  in  the  Bible  discrepancies  in  historical  statements,  but  it 
has  not  been  shown  that  there  is  any  conflict  in  religious  teach- 
ing. Inspiration,  says  Prof.  M.  O.  Smith,  is  not  so  much 
the  spirit  of  invention  as  it  is  the  spirit  of  memory.  The  cru- 
cial point  is  not  the  date  or  authorship,  but  the  relation 
which  the  legislation  of  the  Pentateuch  bears  to  the  whole 
development  of  the  history.  The  laws  of  the  Pentateuch  he 
maintains  were  actually  tested  before  their  insertion  in  the 
Bible.  To  say  that  Higher  Criticism  is  symptomatic  of  a 
declining  faith  is  not  true.  Higher  criticism  has  compelled 
men  to  study  the  Bible  in  the  light  of  our  most  advanced 
knowledge.  It  has  emphasized  the  fact  that  Christianity  is 
not  religion,  but  only  a  form  of  religion — for  there  are  many 
forms,  Christianity  being  the  highest.  When  Christianity  fears 
inquiry  its  value  falls.  Higher  Criticism  it  is  claimed  has  given 
us  a  solution  of  great  questions  more  satisfactory  to  the  con- 
science, to  the  intellect,  and  to  the  teaching  of  science  than  any 
other. 

It  is  alleged  that  the  discussion  of  such  questions  has  exer- 
cised a  baneful  influence,  both  upon  the  people  and  upon  the 
critics.  It  has,  we  are  told,  alienated  the  people  from  the 
churches;  and  while  it  is  possible  for  those  who  have  had  an 
inward  experience  of  grace  to  hold  such  advanced  views  with 
impunity,  it  is  not  possible  in  the  case  of  those  who  have  not 
had  such  experiences.  In  answer  to  this,  it  is  stated  that  the 
influence  of  these  discussions  upon  the  lower  classes  cannot  be 
much,  for  as  Brigadier  Brengel  says :  "  The  lower  classes  do 
not  and  cannot  take  any  intelligent  or  practical  interest  in  these 
questions ;  the  only  two  questions  which  concern  them  are,  the 
Hell  of  the  future  and  the  Hell  of  the  present,  and  even  the 
Hell  of  the  future  has  no  terrors  for  them.  They  can  be  won 
by  love,  but  they  cannot  be  terrorized  by  fear.  It  was  not 
always  thus." 

As  regards  the  upper  classes — our   statesmen,   merchants,. 


Introduction  xxxiil 

teachers  and  even  the  working  classes,  the  influence  of  Higher 
Criticism  upon  them  has  not  been  shown  to  have  been  injuri- 
ous.    The  weight  of  evidence  is  the  other  way. 

As  to  the  allegation  that  Higher  Criticism  has  injuriously 
affected  the  critics  themselves  by  withdrawing  their  sympa- 
thies and  attention  from  missionary  and  philanthropic  move- 
ments, the  facts  of  the  case  refute  it.  Dean  Farrar  is  one  of 
England's  most  famous  champions  of  the  poor  and  degraded; 
he  understands  the  condition  of  the  lower  classes,  and  never 
ceases  to  plead  their  cause  before  God  and  man.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  the  late  Professor  Drummond,  Dr.  Clifford,  Dr. 
Horton,  and  Dr.  George  Adam  Smith,  and  it  is  stated  that 
Dr.  Charles  A.  Briggs,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  critics 
and  theologians  in  Europe  or  America,  made  an  application  to 
Bishop  Potter,  after  his  induction,  that  he  should  be  assigned 
to  a  church  in  a  poor  district  of  New  York  City.  Many  of  the 
higher  critics  are  men  of  deep  and  broad  sympathies. 

What  has  Higher  Criticism  claimed  to  have  accomplished? 
In  addition  to  the  achievements  already  referred  to  it  claims 
to  have  shown  that  the  greater  part  of  the  Psalms,  formerly 
ascribed  to  David,  were  not  his  productions.  Dr.  Preserved 
Smith  says  it  is  doubtful  whether  one  can  be  ascribed  to  David. 
It  has  shown  that  the  Pentateuch  itself  does  not  claim  to  be  the 
work  of  Moses;  that  Isaiah  had  two,  and  probably  three  au- 
thors. It  claims  to  have  increased  our  sense  of  development 
in  the  literature  and  religious  life  of  Israel ;  it  has  established 
the  unity  of  the  Bible  to  be  the  unity  of  an  organism,  and  has 
pointed  out  the  growth  of  Israel's  religion,  both  ritual  and  in- 
stitutional, which  growth  relieves  us  of  the  necessity  of  de- 
fending many  of  those  customs  and  practices  in  the  life  of  this 
ancient  and  historic  people. 

Furthermore,  Higher  Criticism  claims  to  have  made  it  un- 
necessary to  attempt  the  impossible  task  of  harmonizing  every- 
thing in  the  Bible  narrative,  and  it  denotes  the  use  to  which 
such  discrepancies  should  be  put,  namely :  as  marks  of  various 
stages  of  life  and  thought ;  and,  in  so  far  as  Higher  Criticism 


xxxiv  Introduction 

has  been  destructive,  it  has  only  destroyed  certain  traditions 
external  to  the  Bible,  which  have  been  made  to  buttress  its 
historical  authority. 

For  the  most  notable  example  of  its  overthrow  of  tradition 
we  are  referred  to  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  which  it  is  alleged, 
has  been  brought  down  to  a  comparatively  late  date;  but  the 
worth  and  power  of  the  book  has  not  been  diminished 
thereby ;  indeed,  we  are  told  it  actually  enhances  its  value.  Dr. 
Preserved  Smith  observes :  ''  We  should  despair  of  the  power 
of  practical  religion,  if,  after  giving  any  man  wisdom  to  utter 
so  many  excellent  maxims  of  life  and  conduct,  it  should  pro- 
duce a  life  such  as  was  led  by  Solomon.'' 

Undoubtedly,  Higher  Criticism  has  come  into  theology  to 
stay,  for  there  is  still  more  to  be  accomplished,  both  in  the  way 
of  textual  or  lower  criticism,  as  well  as  in  the  way  of  Higher 
Criticism,  or,  the  examination  of  the  internal  characteristics 
of  both  the  Old  and  New  Testament.  But  there  need  be  no 
apprehension  for  as  Dean  Farrar  says :  ''  Our  reverence  for 
the  Bible  has  been  increased  by  the  criticism  and  the  pro- 
gressive enlightenment  which  have  led  us  to  a  truer  estimate 
of  its  place  and  meaning  in  the  dealings  of  God  with  men.'' 
There  is  however  a  far  more  important  question  looming  in 
the  distance,  a  question  which  will  engross  our  attention  in  the 
early  years  of  the  coming  century,  viz.,  what  effect  will  these 
changes  of  opinion  concerning  revelation,  inspiration  and  re- 
ligion, have  upon  the  future  estimate  of  Christ's  life  and  char- 
acter ?  Pres.  Eliot  says  that  love  for  Jesus  will  not  diminish, 
but  that  while  the  pathos  and  heroism  of  his  life  and  death  will 
be  vastly  heightened,  Christ  will  be  relieved  of  all  supernatural 
attributes  and  power.  There  is  evidence  that  the  forward 
movement  is  carrying  some  of  the  critics  farther  than  they  an- 
ticipated, and  indeed  farther  even  than  some  of  them  desire. 

PROTESTANTISM 

The  contest  for  supremacy  between  the  Puritan  and  the 
Anglo-Catholic  parties,  which  has  been  carried  on  since  the 


Introduction  xxxv 

Reformation,  has,  now,  in  England  at  least,  been  brought  to 
a  crisis.  For  Rome,  the  prospects  are  encouraging;  she  has 
succeeded  in  covering  the  name  of  Luther  with  obloquy,  and 
made  the  term  "  Protestantism  "  a  term  of  reproach,  and  that 
among  a  large  section  of  the  clergy  who  live  on  the  money  of 
a  Protestant  Church,  founded  on  Protestant  principles  for  a 
Protestant  end.  The  avowed  object  of  the  Papacy  is  to  un- 
protestantize  England,  and  judging  by  the  introduction  of 
those  ideals  and  practices  in  vogue  previous  to  the  Reformation 
into  so  many  of  the  Established  Churches  of  England,  there 
is  a  possibility  that  that  object  will  be  attained  during  the  next 
century.  Mr.  Armstrong  says :  "  Ritualism  has  come  with  a 
rush.  The  appeal  to  the  senses  by  music,  by  vestment,  by  in- 
cense has  fairly  conquered  the  Church  of  England.*'  But 
worse  than  the  Ritualism  is  the  Sacerdotalism  which  places  the 
supernaturally  endowed  priest  between  the  worshipper  and 
God,  holding  the  very  Keys  of  Heaven.  Side  by  side  with 
this  growth  of  Sacerdotalism  is  the  decay  of  evangelicism. 
England  at  the  close  of  this  century,  has  no  great  evangelical 
scholars  or  thinkers.  Indeed,  England  has  no  great  intel- 
lectual leaders  either  in  the  field  of  science,  of  poetry,  of  litera- 
ture, of  philosophy  or  of  romance. 

This  Sacerdotal  movement  began  with  the  rise  of  the  Ox- 
ford movement.  Year  by  year  it  increased  in  power  until  to- 
day we  find  the  pastoral  conception  of  the  ministry  completely 
overshadowed  by  the  priestly  conception.  By  the  act  of  uni- 
formity of  1559,  the  limits  of  the  Church  to  decree  its  own 
rites  and  ceremonies  were  clearly  and  definitely  defined.  But 
the  high  Church  party  contend  that  its  application  was  limited 
to  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  This  contention  has  no 
foundation  in  fact.  However,  it  seems  to  show  the  desperate 
character  of  the  present  movement  to  unprotestantize  the  Eng- 
lish Church.  This  struggle  has  a  political  significance.  The 
great  middle  or  evangelical  party  within  the  Church  is  grad- 
ually arriving  at  the  conclusion  that  the  only  remedy  lies  in 
the  disestablishment  of  the  Church,  a  result  devoutly  wished  by 


xxxvi  Introduction 

the  non-conformist  section.  Such  an  issue  would  be  followed 
by  the  formal  reunion  of  the  sacerdotal  party  with  the  Church 
of  Rome,  and  the  formal  recognition  by  the  Pope  of  the  valid- 
ity of  those  re-ordinations  which  have  been  secretly  performed 
by  those  English  Episcopal  bishops  who  act  with  the  approval 
and  under  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  See  itself.  This  is  not 
a  question  of  liberty  of  conscience  or  the  enforcement  of  the 
Toleration  Act.  The  essence  of  the  struggle  lies  here ;  whether 
it  is  legal  or  moral  for  those  clergy  who  sympathize  with  Rome 
to  remain  in  the  Church,  to  continue  to  receive  Protestant 
money,  to  introduce  Romish  practices  in  violation  of  their 
ordination  vows,  and  thus  consciously  to  assist  in  destroying 
the  Protestant  character  of  the  Church;  a  church  which  has 
been  partly  established,  and  is  still  partly  maintained  by  the 
money  of  those  citizens  who  were,  and  are,  Protestants,  and 
who  are  denied  any  vote  in  the  appointment  or  dismissal  of 
such  clergy.  These  clergy  remain  in  the  Church,  because,  if 
they  went  out,  they  believe,  England  would  be  lost  to  Catholi- 
cism. There  will  be  no  improvement  until  the  laity  get  the 
power  of  self-government.  The  bishops  and  archbishops  are 
powerless,  and  Parliament  is  loath  to  interfere. 

Cardinal  Manning  said  that  the  most  difficult  task  the  Pa- 
pacy would  ever  have  to  face  would  be  the  task  of  bending  the 
neck  of  this  imperial  race  (meaning  the  English)  to  the  yoke 
of  Rome. 

If  Manning  lived  in  our  day,  he  would  probably  withdraw 
or  modify  that  statement,  for  there  is  a  wave  of  Romanism 
sweeping  over  England  at  this  period  which  is  leaving  abiding 
impressions  in  unexpected  quarters. 

Protestantism,  we  are  told,  has  served  its  purpose.  It  has 
secured  for  us  an  open  Bible,  intellectual  and  religious  free- 
dom, and  its  mission  is  therefore  ended.  The  obvious  reply 
to  this  is  that  Protestantism  does  its  work  only  so  long  as  it 
survives.  The  power  that  brought  toleration  alone  can  pre- 
serve it,  and  the  verdict  of  history  is,  that  only  under  the  ^gis 


Introduction  xxxvii 

of  Protestantism  can  philosophy  as  a  searcher  after  truth  go 
its  own  way.  MaclauchUn,  a  great  Catholic  writer  whose 
book  has  received  the  approbation  of  the  Pope,  says :  "  The 
Catholic  Church  interdicts  the  use  of  private  judgment  in  mat- 
ters of  faith.  Free  inquiry,  liberty  of  mind,  freedom  of 
thought  are  words  she  will  not  and  cannot  listen  to."  On  this 
ground,  Rome  burned  Giordano  Bruno,  the  great  Italian 
thinker,  and  branded  Galileo  with  imprisonment  for  proclaim- 
ing the  most  certain  facts  concerning  the  planetary  system. 
The  Roman  Church  claims  a  right  through  its  alleged  con- 
tinuous growth  and  conscious  unity,  of  explaining,  formulat- 
ing and  restating  truths  and  systems  of  doctrine.  It  there- 
fore refuses  and  repudiates  any  knowledge  which  the  Church 
itself  does  not  possess  or  cannot  sanction.  The  contention  of 
Rome  is,  that  the  Bible  itself  is  utterly  incapable  of  supplying 
us  with  any  system  of  coherent  doctrine.  This  can  only  be 
done  by  the  Romish  Church,  and  as  the  Bible,  as  they  allege, 
is  the  creation  of  the  Church,  and  not  the  Church  the  creation 
of  the  Bible,  it  has  a  right  to  remake  what  it  has  made. 

Another  fact  which  is  favorable  to  the  spread  of  Roman 
Catholicism  in  England  is  the  striking  change  which  has  come 
over  the  English  character.  Many  of  the  qualities  which  con- 
tributed to  England's  greatness  in  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries  have  passed  away.  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison 
states  that  England  has  lost  much  of  that  higher  spirit  which 
inspired  public  and  private  life  thirty  and  fifty  years  ago. 
There  has  been,  he  contends,  a  gradual  lowering,  not  only  of 
intellectual  powers,  but  of  moral  tone.  With  all  the  blunders 
and  delusions  of  the  earlier  period  of  the  century,  Englishmen 
were  characterized  by  finer  aspirations  and  more  generous  im- 
pulses than  at  present.  This  deterioration  is  manifest  in 
poetry,  literature,  science,  philosophy  and  in  national  ideals, 
also  in  ethics  and  religion.  There  is  a  dying  out  of  those  high 
standards  of  life  which  characterized  Englishmen  in  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries.     Moreover  the  English  peo- 


xxxviii  Introduction 

pie,  notwithstanding  the  temporary  influence  of  the  Crom- 
welHan  period,  have  instinctively  retained  that  love  of  ritual 
which  they  inherited  from  the  Middle  Ages. 

The  Rev.  R.  A.  Armstrong  describes  this  movement  to  con- 
centrate the  consciences  of  Englishmen  on  the  priest  and  his 
pretensions  as  an  effort  to  hold  back  the  public  mind  from  in- 
quiry as  to  the  reality  of  the  unseen  God.  It  is  unconsciously 
at  bottom  a  movement  of  the  profoundest  scepticism  which 
cannot  trust  the  soul  to  find  its  pilgrim  way  to  the  breast  of  the 
living  God.  The  nature  of  the  movement,  and  the  position 
of  its  sponsors,  point  to  the  conclusion  that  its  prospects  are 
encouraging.  All  retrograde  movements  begin  at  the  top  and 
go  downward.  All  reformations  begin  at  the  bottom  and  go 
upward.  The  constant  stream  of  perverts,  making  their  way 
Romeward,  come  from  the  English  aristocracy,  the  social  lead- 
ers and  the  clergy. 

Moreover,  Catholicism  in  England  has  won  a  signal  vic- 
tory, in  that  it  has  succeeded  in  enlisting  the  Protestant  senti- 
ment of  liberty  on  behalf  of  itself  and  of  its  methods,  so  that 
the  man  who  opposes  Roman  practices,  as  a  menace  to  national 
well-being,  is  certain  to  be  put  down  as  a  bigot  and  an  ex- 
tremist. 

Again,  there  are  certain  features  in  the  closing  years  of  this 
century  which  are  favorable  to  the  spread  of  Roman  Catholi- 
cism. By  these  features,  I  mean  slackened  convictions,  luxuri- 
ous worldliness  and  self-indulgence.  History  shows  that,  in 
such  times,  and  under  such  influences.  Sacerdotalism  becomes 
possible. 

Then,  there  is  the  reaction  from  the  lack  of  reverence,  which 
has  characterized  the  non-conformist  system  of  worship. 
Faber  went  over  to  Rome,  because  of  the  "  dreadful  facility  " 
of  turning  to  God  indicated  by  what  he  was  pleased  to  call  the 
''  base  theology  "  of  the  Evangelical  school. 

Lastly,  in  considering  this  Roman  movement,  we  must  take 
into  account  the  perplexities  and  uncertainties  which  drove 


Introduction  xxxix 

Newman  into  the  Roman  fold,  and  which  to-day  press  with 
heavier  weight  upon  men's  souls  than  at  any  other  period.  To 
such,  Rome  holds  out  her  hand,  representing  herself  as  the 
only  power  capable  of  giving  rest  and  freedom  from  doubt  and 
distraction. 

While  this  is  a  question  which  at  present  chiefly  concerns 
the  English  people  it  is  impossible  altogether  to  ignore  its 
bearing  upon  America.  Here  Cosmopolitanism  is  fast  estab- 
lishing itself.  Here,  if  anywhere,  the  breaking  up  of  national- 
ity will  take  place,  and  it  will  be  Rome's  opportunity.  She 
has  always  shown  herself  to  be  a  bold,  aggressive,  proselyting 
Church,  and  she  understands  the  American  temperament 
thoroughly.  In  the  sixteenth  century  the  great  opposition 
to  Rome  was  the  sentiment  of  nationality  which  was  empha- 
sized, or  rather  awakened  by  the  Reformation.  But  the  clos- 
ing years  of  this  century  bear  testimony  to  the  decay,  and  ap- 
proaching extinction  of  the  sentiment  of  Nationality.  What 
will  be  the  attitude  of  the  American  democracy?  This  is  the 
vital  question.  Democracy,  we  are  assured  in  some  quarters, 
is  safe  and  can  be  depended  upon.  But  can  democracy  be  de- 
pended upon?  It  is  too  soon  to  prophesy  for  democracy  is 
on  its  trial.  Its  success  has  not  been  established.  There  is  a 
growing  change  of  sentiment  in  the  American  democracy  to- 
wards Roman  Catholicism;  there  is  a  similar  change  among 
agnostics  and  even  among  men  of  scientific  knowledge.  The 
only  people  that  appear  impervious  are  the  negroes.  But  this 
fact  does  not  disturb  Rome,  for  the  reason  that  she  knows,  that 
notwithstanding  the  glamour  and  pride  of  the  emancipation, 
the  American  people  are  as  disinclined  as  ever,  both  north  and 
south,  to  grant  the  negroes  any  substantial  share  in  the  de- 
velopment and  guidance  of  their  national  life.  The  negro 
problem  has  assumed  very  grave  proportions,  and  notes  of 
alarm  are  already  being  sounded  by  the  more  thoughtful  and 
reflective  of  the  people. 


xl  Introduction 

THE    lord's    supper 

It  is  sad,  but  true,  that  what  was  meant  to  be  a  symbol  of 
peace  and  fellowship,  has  been  for  well  nigh  two  thousand 
years  a  source  of  contention  and  strife.  Why?  Because  the 
Christianity  of  the  Church  is  so  different  from  the  Christianity 
of  Christ.  The  essence  of  Christianity  is  spirit,  but  the  Church 
has  sought  to  make  it  a  thing  of  form ;  this  means  not  only  a 
contrast  but  antagonism. 

The  Rev.  George  Henry  Hubbard  says  it  is  a  mistake  to 
suppose  that  Christ  formed  a  church.  The  Church  dates  from 
the  day  of  Pentecost — that  is  the  Church  of  the  New  Dispensa- 
tion— the  Church  as  we  know  it.  Matthew  and  the  rest  of 
the  Apostles  were  not  members  of  a  church  when  they  sat  at 
the  table  with  their  Lord,  for  there  w^as  no  organic  church  in 
existence  at  the  time.  There  is  no  record  that  Jesus  asked  any 
questions  before  the  bread  was  broken  and  the  wine  was 
poured.  He  imposed  no  conditions  of  belief,  or  indeed  of 
character,  for  Judas  was  one  of  the  twelve.  So  it  was  when 
He  called  them  out  of  the  w^orld  to  be  His  disciples.  He  sim- 
ply said  ''  Follow  me."  Nothing  was  said  about  creed,  or 
belief,  or  experience.  Mr.  Hubbard  states :  "  We  have  no 
hint  of  a  Churchly  interpretation  of  the  sacrament  till  some 
years  had  passed."  ''  In  fact  we  are  informed  in  the  Acts  that 
the  disciples  went  from  house  to  house  breaking  bread  with 
gladness  and  singleness  of  heart.  Thus  the  family  aspect  of 
the  old  Passover  feast  observed  by  Christ  the  night  before  His 
death,  was  preserved  by  the  apostles  and  Christians  after  His 
ascension."  How,  and  by  whom,  was  the  Supper  transferred 
from  the  home  into  the  Church,  and  changed  from  its  original 
simplicity  to  its  present  ceremonial  form?  Dr.  McGiffert 
fixes  the  responsibility  for  this  change  on  the  Apostle  Paul, 
whom  he  regards  as  the  originator  of  the  Lord's  supper  in  its 
present  form.  The  reason  for  this  change  was  Paul's  desire 
to  avoid  undue  indulgence  in  food  and  drink  on  the  part  of  the 
Christians.  So  he  changed  what  was ''originally  a  sacred  fam- 
ily service,  into  a  purely  formal  and  Churchly  ceremony." 


Introduction  xli 

Mr.  Hubbard  contends  that  by  this  transfer  of  the  ordinance 
from  the  home  to  the  Church,  it  lost  much  of  its  original  sig- 
nificance and  freedom.  He  further  maintains  that  the  theo- 
logical fictions  which  have  since  been  attached  to  the  ordinance 
had  no  existence  in  the  mind  of  Christ,  certainly  not  in  His 
utterances  and  example,  and  that  to  confine  the  sacrament  to 
those  who  have  submitted  themselves  to  a  certain  form  of  bap- 
tism is  to  rob  the  ordinance  of  its  original  significance  and  to 
give  it  an  interpretation  absolutely  unwarranted  by  anything 
Jesus  said  or  did. 

The  ground  upon  which  Mr.  Jordan  stands  is  that  baptized 
believers  constitute  the  Church.  It  was  the  practice  of  the 
apostles  to  baptize  all  believers  before  admitting  them  to  the 
Lord's  table.  To  this  practice  there  was  not  a  single  excep- 
tion; all  orthodox  churches  or  denominations  agree  in  the 
practice  of  admitting  none  to  the  Lord's  table  until  they  be- 
come members  of  a  Christian  church,  and  none  are  considered 
members  of  a  Christian  church  until  they  have  been  baptized. 
Such  practice  he  says  agrees  with  the  New  Testament.  Mr. 
Jordan  goes  on  to  say  that  baptism  constitutes  membership; 
the  Church  being  founded  upon  the  ordinances.  The  New 
Testament  recognizes  no  baptism  except  that  of  the  believer. 
He  further  states  that  the  scholarship  of  the  world  agrees  that 
the  original  mode  of  baptism  was  immersion,  that  oneness  of 
belief  is  the  basis  of  fellowship  and  there  can  be  no  real  fellow- 
ship at  the  table  unless  all  who  sit  down  together  have  the  same 
views  on  spiritual  truths.  He  asks  if  all  Christians  could  con- 
sistently come  together  at  the  Lord's  table,  what  justification 
would  there  be  for  maintaining  separate  denominations?  It 
is  clear  he  says  from  the  Scriptures  that  the  supper  is  not  a 
family  ordinance. 

Which  of  these  two  propositions  is  "  more  in  accordance  with 
the  example  of  Christ,  with  the  spirit  of  the  gospel,  and  with  the 
reasonable  demands  of  enlightened  common  sense,"  our  readers 
will  decide  for  themselves.  The  question  is  asked :  "  If  the 
sacrament  was  not  originally  a  family  ordinance,  how  is  it  we 


xlii  Introduction 

are  explicitly  told  in  Acts  ii :  46,  that  the  disciples  of  Jesus 
went  from  house  to  house  breaking  bread?  "  "  There  can  be 
no  dispute  as  to  the  fact  whatever  may  be  our  interpretation 
of  it.  There  can  also  be  no  question  that  the  Passover  feast, 
which  Jesus  consecrated  into  a  memorial  of  Himself,  was 
eaten  in  the  home ;  the  members  of  the  family  being  together 
and  the  father  sitting  at  the  head  of  the  table  as  director  of  the 
feast."  This  is  Mr.  Hubbard's  position.  The  battle  cry  of 
Christians  during  the  closing  years  of  this  century,  is  "  Back 
to  Christ."  "  If  we  go  back  to  Christ  for  instruction  and  in- 
spiration upon  the  sacrament,  we  find  that  not  one  of  those 
who  partook  of  the  supper  was  a  church  member;  that  we 
have  no  record  that  He  imposed  any  condition  of  belief  or  de- 
clared that  after  its  institution,  there  should  be  any  condition." 
Jesus  Himself,  says  Mr.  Hubbard,  never  drew  the  lines  of  dis- 
cipleship  as  sharply  as  the  Church  did  after  He  had  left  them. 
Mr.  Jordan  declares  that  oneness  of  belief  is  the  basis  of  fel- 
lowship, and  that  there  can  be  no  real  fellowship  at  the  table 
unless  all  who  sit  down  together,  have  the  same  views  of 
spiritual  truth.  This  is  a  strong  statement,  and  if  that  is  so 
we  must  conclude  that  there  never  has  been,  and  is  not,  such  a 
thing  as  true  fellowship,  not  in  any  church  of  any  sect  what- 
ever throughout  the  whole  world.  Furthermore,  it  is  a  good 
thing  that  there  is  no  such  fellowship,  and  that  the  indications 
are  that  there  never  will  be  such  fellowship.  There  can  be  no 
fellowship  between  man  and  wife,  between  friend  and  friend,  or 
father  and  son,  whether  at  home  around  the  family  altar  or  in 
the  church,  unless  their  views  upon  the  Atonement,  the  Trin- 
ity and  Inspiration  are  exactly  alike.  As  to  the  contention 
that  if  all  Christians  could  come  together  at  the  Lord's  table, 
what  justification  would  there  be  for  maintaining  separate 
denominations,  the  reply  is  obvious.  The  question  of  the 
Sacrament  is  not  the  only  one  that  separates  Christians;  there 
is  the  question  of  organization,  of  discipline,  of  ministerial  ap- 
pointment, of  a  settled  ministry  and  methods  of  worship.  Mr. 
Jordan  is  mistaken  when  he  says  that  all  orthodox  churches  or 


Introduction  xliii 

denominations  agree  in  admitting  none  to  the  Lord's  table 
until  they  have  become  members  of  a  Christian  church.  As  a 
matter  of  historical  fact,  it  may  be  stated  that  the  Congrega- 
tionalists  invite  non-members  to  partake  of  the  Sacrament. 
Many  Presbyterians  do  and  the  Protestant  Episcopalians,  and 
so  do  the  Unitarians.  There  was  such  a  theory,  but  it  is  not 
observed  nor  even  recognized  now. 

Mr.  Hubbard,  we  believe,  is  in  error  when  he  states  that  a 
"  Church  which  insists  upon  one  particular  form  of  baptism, 
no  longer  refuses  to  fellowship  churches  that  adopt  other 
forms,  nor  denies  to  the  members  of  other  communions,  the 
privilege  of  partaking  of  the  Lord's  supper  in  its  circle.'' 
There  are  Baptist  Churches  in  America  which  practice  open 
Communion,  but  they  are  not  numerous.  There  are  also  emi- 
nent ministers  and  a  great  number  of  Baptist  members  who 
believe  in  open  communion.  However,  the  great  body  of  Bap- 
tists in  America  do  not  practice  open  Communion,  and  this  is 
one  of  the  secrets  of  their  power.  Generally  speaking,  the  in- 
vitation is  couched  in  such  terms  as  to  fix  the  responsibility  of 
remaining  or  going  upon  the  visitors. 

THE    OUTLOOK    FOR    THE    FUTURE 

Judging  from  the  trend  of  the  world's  thought  at  this  time, 
as  shown  in  this  work,  the  future  does  not  belong  to  any  sect 
or  creed.  James  Martineau  said :  ''  The  true  religious  life 
supplies  grounds  of  sympathy  and  association  deeper  and  wider 
than  can  be  expressed  by  any  doctrinal  names  or  formulas,  and 
that  free  play  can  never  be  given  to  those  spiritual  affinities 
till  all  stipulation,  direct  or  implied,  for  specified  agreement  in 
theological  opinion,  is  discarded  from  the  basis  of  church 
union."  We  are  evidently  coming  to  that.  Sect  will  mean 
less  in  the  twentieth  century  than  it  does  now,  and  it  means  less 
now  than  it  did  fifty  years  ago. 

Those  who  think  that  religion  consists  in  sprinkling,  or  in 
immersion,  in  denominational  cliques,  are  growing  less  numer- 
ous as  the  years  go  by.     True  religion  embraces  all  that  is  kind, 


xliv  Introduction 

or  wise,  or  gentle,  or  pure  in  mankind.  Such  is  the  trend  of  the 
world's  best  thought  at  this  period,  and  the  indications  are  that 
many  of  the  outward  symbols,  which  now  prevent  intercom- 
munion between  different  religious  bodies,  will  be  removed, 
and  the  churches  will  become  more  of  missionary  institutions, 
and  less  of  doctrinal  schools.  The  final  test  of  salvation  will  be 
character.  Uniformity  of  views  upon  such  questions  as  the 
Atonement,  or  the  Trinity,  or  Inspiration,  is  difficult,  if  not  im- 
possible. 

The  spirit  of  association,  as  Chevalier  Bunsen  called  it  fifty 
years  ago,  is  upon  us,  and  is  one  of  the  most  signal  character- 
istics of  the  closing  years  of  this  nineteenth  century.  There 
are  but  few  signs  of  organic  union;  men  still  prefer  to  work 
on  denominational  lines,  and  it  has  not  yet  been  shown  that 
there  is  anything  to  be  gained  by  a  union  of  government.  But 
there  is  a  spirit  of  closer  brotherhood  dawning  upon  the  world, 
and  it  may  be  safely  stated  that  the  one  supreme  question 
which  is  asked  by  the  upper,  middle  and  the  lower  classes  is, 
not  which  of  these  denominations  is  the  most  primitive,  but 
which  is  the  most  adapted  to  the  needs  and  conditions  of  the 
incoming  century.  Service,  and  not  creed,  is  now  the  test  and 
qualification  for  honour.  Character,  not  orthodoxy,  will  be 
the  badge  of  honour  in  God's  kingdom.  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
used  to  say :  "  I  would  be  a  Catholic  to-morrow  if  I  thought 
the  Catholic  Church  the  best  field  in  which  to  develop  char- 
acter." "  The  Church  that  is  apostolic  is  the  church  that 
comes  nearest  to  acting  as  the  apostles  did." 

Under  all  the  gusts  and  storms  of  human  thought,  there  is 
developing  a  spirit  of  universal  comradeship  among  believers 
in  God.  Comradeship  in  work  and  worship,  the  only  com- 
radeship that  is  possible.  No  wonder  Walt  Whitman,  rapt  in 
ecstasy  with  the  vision  of  the  coming  union  of  men,  said : 

"  What  whispers  are  these,  O'  lands,  running  ahead  of  you,  passing  under 

the  seas  ? 
Are  all  nations  communing  ?     Is  there  going  to  be  but  one  heart  to  the 

globe." 


Christianity  at  the  End  of  the  Nineteenth 

Century 


Christianity    at    the    End    of  the 
Nineteenth   Century 


BY 


FREDERIC  HARRISON,   Esquire. 

WE  are  entering  on  the  last  lap  of  another  hundred  years, 
as  the  centuries  encircle  the  growth  of  nations  in  swift 
revolving  eras.  Let  us  ask,  "  Is  life  growing  nobler  and 
purer?  "  "  Does  religion  inspire  the  heart?  "  "  Are  we  com- 
ing nearer  to  the  just,  the  loving,  the  beautiful,  the  true?" 
As  we  look  back  over  the  nineteenth  century,  is  it  so  glorious 
an  advance  upon  the  eighteenth,  or  indeed  upon  the  seven- 
teenth ?  In  population,  in  huge  cities,  in  area  of  dominion,  in 
wealth,  in  material  prosperity,  in  mechanical  inventions,  in 
physical  discoveries,  in  all  forms  of  material  resources — yes! 
in  these  the  advance  has  been  portentous;  wealth  beyond  the 
dreams  of  avarice,  dominion  that  would  make  Alexander  of 
Macedon  pale  with  envy,  appliances  that  to  our  grandfathers 
would  seem  like  fairy  tales.  But  is  humanity  measured  by 
these  material  things,  by  power,  by  wealth?  Our  great  poet 
tells  us  that  riches  abound  not  in  Heaven — but  elsewhere : — 

"  Let  none  admire 
That  riches  grow  in  hell ;  that  soil  may  best 
Deserve  the  precious  bane." 

I  am  not  making  any  barren  comparison  of  one  century  with 
another.  And  I  doubt  if,  even  in  the  narrow  limit  of  a  single 
nation,  the  general  progress  of  mankind  can  be  turned  back, 
unless  in  rare  and  exceptional  cases.  I  am  a  convinced  be- 
liever in  the  gradual  improvement  of  civilization  when  we 
judge  it  by  areas  and  epochs  sufficiently  wide  and  typical.  In 
all  progress  there  are  oscillations,  partial  degeneration,  and 
local  or  temporary  ailments.  But  I  must  profess  my  convic' 
tion — and  I  hear  the  same  confessed  by  the  best  men  and 

3 


4  Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

women  day  by  day — that  our  immediate  generation  has  been 
sinking  of  late  to  meaner  ideals,  to  coarser  ways  of  life,  to 
more  vulgar  types  of  literature  and  art,  to  more  open  craving 
after  wealth,  and  a  more  insolent  assertion  of  pride  and  force. 
The  nineteenth  century  may  be  judged  hereafter  to  be  alto- 
gether as  much  superior  to  the  eighteenth  in  moral  progress,  as 
it  certainly  has  been  superior  in  material  progress.  But  to 
those  of  us  who  are  well  past  the  term  of  middle  life  there  is  a 
painful  sense  in  these  late  decades  that  the  moral  currency  has 
been  debased. 

I  am  old  enough  myself  to  remember  distinctly  the  whole 
reign  of  Queen  Victoria.  And  as  I  compare  one  decade  with 
another  I  note  how  to-day  we  have  lost  much  of  the  higher 
spirit  which  inspired  our  public  and  private  life  not  more  than 
thirty  years  ago;  how  to-day  we  make  idols  of  things  which 
were  then  the  object  of  loathing  and  shame.  I  am  not  speak- 
ing of  glaring  examples  of  vice,  of  gambling  in  its  multifarious 
forms,  of  public  extravagances,  delusions,  nor  of  special  acts 
of  infatuation  and  greed  in  political  adventures.  There  are 
plenty  of  such  things  in  any  age.  And  it  is  easy  to  found  gen- 
eral and  sweeping  charges  on  specific  follies  and  crimes.  What 
1  mean  is  a  gradual  lowering  of  moral  tone  in  these  recent 
years — an  abandonment  of  the  higher  standard  of  public 
opinion,  a  deliberate  acceptance  of  what  is  evil  and  base. 

As  I  look  back  over  the  present  reign,  it  seems  to  me  clear 
that  the  later  years  have  a  lower  tone  of  truth  and  of  honour 
than  that  we  remember  in  the  earlier  and  middle  years  of  this 
period.  With  all  the  blunders,  wrongs  and  delusions  of  the 
earlier  times,  our  people  had  some  finer  inspirations,  and  more 
generous  impulses  for  ends  which  were  not  wholly  selfish  or 
mercenary.  In  my  boyhood  there  began  that  long,  compli- 
cated, and  indefatigable  series  of  movements  to  improve  the 
condition  of  the  people,  to  lift  up  the  burdens  of  the  poor,  to 
reform  our  entire  financial  system,  in  the  interest  of  the  masses 
and  by  casting  the  burdens  on  the  rich — the  long  labour  to 
secure  Free  Trade,  cheap  food,  factory  legislation,  legislation 


Christianity  at  the  End  of  the  XIX  Century      5 

for  the  rescue  of  the  young,  for  the  education  of  the  people. 
Poor  Law  reform,  sanitary  reform,  financial  reform,  law  re- 
form— causes  associated  with  the  names  of  Peel,  Cobden, 
Bright,  Gladstone,  Shaftesbury,  Brougham,  Russell,  Stanley, 
Chad  wick,  Forster,  Mill  and  many  more.  I  am  not  referring 
to  any  special  legislation  or  agitation,  nor  do  I  say  that  it  was 
all  wise,  or  wholly  disinterested.  I  mean  that  all  these  various 
changes  in  our  political  and  social  system  were  pressed  on  with 
an  unselfish  desire  to  make  the  world  better,  with  a  genuine 
enthusiasm  for  what  was  good  and  right  in  itself  which  has 
more  or  less  died  out  of  us  to-day.  Enthusiasm  and  devotion 
to-day  there  is ;  but  how  deeply  are  they  degraded  to  personal, 
material  and  national  ambition? 

The  great  religious  upheaval  associated  with  the  name  of 
John  Henry  Newman  was  a  thing  both  deeper  and  more  spirit- 
ual than  the  petty  squabble  to-day  about  vestments  and  incense. 
There  was  a  generous  sympathy  with  the  independence  of  na- 
tions, and  practical  abhorrence  of  international  oppression. 
We  felt  to  the  heart  the  griefs  of  Poles,  of  Hungarians,  of 
Lombards  and  Venetians.  The  heart  of  the  people  was  wrung 
to  its  fibre  by  a  brotherly  interest  in  the  great  crisis  of  the 
United  States.  The  Crimean  war,  even  if  it  were  a  blunder 
and  an  illusion,  was  entered  upon  with  a  genuine  resolve  to 
protect  the  weak  against  the  strong.  I  am  far  from  pretend- 
ing to  justify  or  extol  all  that  was  done  in  the  first  half  of  the 
present  reign.  But  in  those  days  what  stirred  the  heart  of  our 
people  were  those  strivings  after  well  being,  peace,  and  free- 
dom at  home  and  abroad,  and  not  the  ignoble  passion  to 
domineer  and  to  grasp,  to  pile  up  wealth  and  to  make  a  bigger 
Empire,  to  beat  our  rivals  in  trade  and  in  arms. 

Nor  is  it  only  that  our  national  sympathies  and  enthusiasm 
have  grown  colder  and  coarser,  but  there  has  come  over  us  a 
positive  turn  for  vulgarity  of  thought,  manners  and  taste.  We 
seem  to  be  declining  on  what  the  poet  calls  "  a  range  of  lower 
feelings  and  a  narrower  heart "  than  of  old.  It  is  a  common 
observation  that  the  widowhood  and  retirement  of  the  Queen 


6  Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

have  been  followed  by  a  deplorable  decline  in  the  simplicity, 
purity,  and  culture  which  marked  the  dominant  society  in  the 
days  of  her  married  life.  Fashion,  as  it  is  called,  is  now  at  the 
mercy  of  any  millionaire  gambler,  or  any  enterprising  Monte 
Cristo  from  across  the  seas.  Victorian  literature  is  declining 
into  the  "  short  story  "  and  the  "  problem  play  ",  taking  its 
heroines  from  women  with  a  past  and  its  heroes  from  the 
slums.  In  prose  and  in  verse  the  favourite  style  is  the  cockney 
slang  of  the  costermonger,  the  betting  ring,  and  the  barrack 
canteen.  The  reek  of  the  pot-house,  the  music  hall,  the  turf, 
of  the  share-market,  of  the  thieves'  fence,  infects  our  literature, 
our  manners,  our  amusements,  and  our  ideals  of  life.  The 
note  of  the  smart  world  is  to  bluster  about  guns,  war-ships, 
race-horses,  and  Rand  shares,  in  the  jargon  that  is  current  at 
a  race  course. 

Any  general  debasement  of  tone  must  have  some  determin- 
ing cause.  And  the  causes  of  this  debasement  are  as  usual 
somewhat  mixed,  and  are  partly  material  and  partly  spiritual. 
To  begin  with  the  material,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  a  great 
change  came  over  the  world  when  it  witnessed  the  triumph  of 
the  Bismarckian  policy  by  which  the  map  of  Europe  was  trans- 
formed thirty  years  ago.  The  defeat  and  dismemberment  of 
Denmark,  followed  by  the  defeat  of  Austria  and  the  reorgan- 
ization of  Germany,  and  this  crowned  by  the  overthrow  of 
France  and  the  conquest  of  two  of  her  provinces  with  200,- 
000,000  in  money,  raised  Prussia  in  seven  years  from  the 
fourth  place  of  Continental  Powers  to  the  acknowledged  pri- 
macy in  the  first  rank.  But  it  did  much  more.  It  started  a 
wonderful  development  of  financial,  commercial,  and  colonial 
expansion.  For  the  first  time  in  this  century  war  had  been 
made  "  to  pay  ".  Industry  had  been  nourished  by  war.  A 
tremendous  war  was  followed  by  unexampled  national  pros- 
perity. It  was  a  policy  avowedly  of  "  Blood  and  Iron  ",  of 
force  and  ambition,  of  might  without  right.  It  mocked  at 
moral  considerations  as  foolish  sentiment.     Its  creed  was  the 


Christianity  at  the  End  of  the  XIX  Century     7 

good  old  rule,  the  simple  plan — "  Take  what  you  can  ".  "  To 
the  victors  the  spoils !  " 

The  previous  wars  in  Europe,  since  the  fall  of  Napoleon 
had  all  been  professedly  waged  to  protect  some  people  from 
oppression,  for  defence  against  aggression,  not  of  avowed 
offence  and  conquest.  And  they  had  all  been  the  source  of 
distress  and  heavy  burdens  even  to  the  victor.  But  here  was  a 
series  of  three  wars  in  succession  which  were  hardly  disclaimed 
as  wars  of  conquest,  which  had  been  followed  by  prosperity  in 
leaps  and  bounds,  and  had  raised  the  nation  in  eight  years  to 
the  primacy  of  Europe  of  a  kind  that  might  demand  a  century 
of  progress  in  less  violent  ways.  From  the  grossly  material 
point  of  view,  it  was  an  astonishing  success.  Upon  Prince 
Bismarck's  death,  the  repulsive  side  of  the  reviews  of  his 
career  lay  in  this,  that  no  one  thought  anything  of  the  question 
if  it  were  right  or  wrong,  just  or  unjust,  beneficent  or  retro- 
grade; to  them  all  it  seemed,  however  barbarous  from  the 
point  of  view  of  morality  and  civilization,  a  splendid  and  typi- 
cal success.     To  doubt  this  was  "  unctuous  rectitude  *\ 

Bismarck  set  the  fashion  in  statesmanship ;  he  did  not  long 
wait  for  imitators  and  rivals.  One  after  another  the  nations 
of  Europe  started  rather  poor  copies  of  the  Blood  and  Iron 
invention.  It  was  taken  up  like  a  new  machine-gun.  Our 
own  Disraeli  was  one  of  the  first  to  try  the  new  weapon.  He 
started  the  Jingo  fever  in  the  Turko-Russian  war,  the  "  for- 
ward "  policy  in  Afghanistan  and  Cyprus  and  he  added  to  the 
historic  crown  of  England  the  tawdry  paste  jewel  of  Empire. 
He  founded  Imperialism,  which  has  grown  since  like  a  Upas 
tree,  and  has  poisoned  Conservatives,  Whigs,  and  Radicals 
alike.  Mr.  Gladstone  himself,  with  many  reserves  and  vari- 
ous excuses,  fell  under  the  spell  of  it  at  last,  and  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's successor  is  now  one  of  the  chief  prophets  of  the  new 
Mahdism.  British  statesmen,  to  be  just,  were  shy  of  resorting 
to  the  "  Blood  and  Iron  "  weapon  of  Europe ;  but  they  made 
an  excessive  use  of  it  in  Colonial  and  Oriental  regions.     And 


8  Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

in  Egypt,  the  Soudan,  in  Central  Africa,  on  the  Congo  and  the 
Niger,  in  Uganda  and  Charterland,  in  Chitral,  Burmah,  and 
China  they  raised  the  cry  year  after  year  of  Imperial  expansion 
and  trade  profits,  new  markets  and  the  Union  Jack. 

The  whole  world  followed  the  Bismarckian  lead.  Russia, 
from  whom  perhaps  the  famous  Chancellor  originally  imported 
his  great  idea,  had  an  irresistible  destiny  in  that  direction,  as 
the  largest,  most  populous,  least  civilized  nation  in  Europe. 
Austria  even  added  to  all  her  difficulties  by  another  big  annexa- 
tion in  the  Balkan  peninsula.  Italy,  in  spite  of  her  bankruptcy 
and  dynastic  weakness,  must  needs  clutch  at  a  province  on  the 
Red  Sea.  France  could  not  be  left  out,  and  must  make  the  tri- 
colour wave  over  part  of  Siam,  Tonquin,  Madagascar,  the 
Niger,  and  at  last  the  Nile.  Japan,  and  even  little  Greece,  took 
up  the  Imperial  mania.  And  at  last  the  United  States  forsook 
their  settled  rules  and  policy,  and  are  starting  an  Empire  across 
the  ocean.  All  nations,  all  parties,  all  statesmen  are  poisoned 
with  this  new  microbe  that  one  of  them  has  named  megalo- 
mania, and  Disraeli,  Gladstone,  Rosebery,  Ferry,  Crispi,  and 
McKinley  took  lessons  from  the  great  inventor  of  civilization 
and  progress  as  based  on  blood  and  iron. 

And  then  Mammon  would  not  be  behind  Moloch;  but  re- 
solved to  show  that  blood  and  iron  meant  good  business  as 
well  as  glory.  Gigantic  speculations  were  started  in  all  parts 
of  the  planet,  railroads  across  whole  continents,  mines  which 
produced  the  income  and  wielded  the  resources  of  an  average 
State,  plantations  and  settlements  as  big  as  many  a  great  king- 
dom. And  all  these  were  put  upon  a  footing  that  was  half 
industrial  and  half  military — like  an  ocean  liner  constructed  to 
be  used  as  an  armed  cruiser.  Trade  and  business,  war  and 
conquest,  were  mixed  up  in  equal  shares.  Under  some  charter 
or  other  guarantee  of  complicity  from  the  State,  the  adventur- 
ers issued  forth  to  fill  their  pockets,  to  beat  down  rivals,  and 
extend  the  Empire  in  a  kind  of  nondescript  enterprise,  which 
was  partly  commercial,  partly  imperial,  partly  buccaneering, 
but  wholly  immoral  and  perilous  to  peace.     It  was  somewhat 


Christianity  at  the  End  of  the  XIX  Century      9 

like  those  piratical  enterprises  under  Drake  and  Raleigh,  in 
the  days  of  Elizabeth,  when  the  Queen  and  her  courtiers  took 
shares  in  buccaneering  adventures  to  plunder  the  people  of 
Spain  without  declaring  war. 

The  opening  of  the  vast  continent  of  Africa  by  missionaries, 
hunters,  and  prospectors  set  all  Europe  on  fire  much  as  the 
discovery  of  the  wealth  of  the  West  Indies  and  South  America 
led  to  the  wild  scramble  for  transatlantic  empires  in  the  age 
of  Elizabeth.  European  nations  rushed  in  to  fight  for  the 
spoil  and  enslave  the  natives.  And,  as  usual,  our  own  people 
secured  the  lion's  share  of  the  loot  with  abundant  jealousy  and 
hatred  from  their  distant  competitors.  Ruby  mines,  diamond 
mines,  gold  mines,  ivory,  rubber,  oil,  or  cotton  served  from 
time  to  time  to  attract  investors  and  to  float  gigantic  adven- 
tures. As  if  the  very  spirit  of  evil  had  been  commissioned  to 
tempt  our  generation,  like  as  Job  was  tempted  in  the  poem, 
the  era  of  this  saturnalia  of  blood  and  iron  in  Europe  was  the 
moment  when  enormous  discoveries  of  precious  stones  and 
metals  were  revealed  to  the  gloating  eyes  of  avarice  and  ambi- 
tion. The  pair  fell  upon  the  mines  like  furies,  the  one  shout- 
ing out  Gold,  the  other  Empire,  and  aroused  a  national  de- 
lirium for  wealth  and  dominion.  Already  the  spirit  of  Evil 
seems  to  have  begun  his  work  of  slaughter  and  loss,  as  when 
Job  in  his  distress  cried  out,  "  The  Lord  gave,  and  the  Lord  has 
taken  away.*'  But  are  we  so  sure  that  death  and  loss  will  be 
made  good  to  us  in  the  end  as  amply  as  it  was  made  good  to 
Job? 

The  various  events  all  coincided  within  the  last  quarter  of 
the  century  now  about  to  end.  If  we  needed  a  date  for  this 
great  change  in  our  national  and  industrial  life  I  would  take  as 
a  symbol  the  proclamation  of  the  Queen  as  Empress  of  India. 
It  was  a  mere  form,  without  direct  efYect  in  itself.  But  it 
served  as  the  baptism  of  the  new  Imperialism.  The  British 
flag  henceforth  represented  an  Empire  of  conquest  and  an- 
nexation, on  the  lines  of  that  Russian  Empire  which,  in  the 
middle  of  the  century,  Europe  had  combined  to  check  and  hum- 


lo        Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

ble.  The  Imperial  title  was  a  bauble  in  itself;  but  it  symbol- 
ized the  ambition  of  the  men  who  arranged  it.  Cyprus  was 
seized  out  of  mere  bravado.  On  the  Imperial  banner  was  in- 
scribed the  famous  motto,  Peace  with  Honour;  on  the  obverse 
of  which  scroll  was  deeply  graven,  War  with  Disgrace.  And 
the  vulgar  thing  with  a  vulgar  name,  which  is  the  new  religion 
of  the  Imperialist,  was  bred  in  a  cockney  music-hall.  The 
Transvaal  was  annexed  by  a  snatch  decree;  the  Zulu  war  fol- 
lowed; then  the  Afghan  war  and  the  "  Forward  "  policy  of  our 
ardent  proconsuls  and  the  Young  India  party.  Governments 
and  parties  changed;  but  not  the  policy.  Egypt  was  seized; 
and  in  eighteen  years  it  has  cost  us  no  less  than  six  campaigns. 
Burmah  was  conquered  and  annexed.  The  rush  to  the  dia- 
mond mines  is  hardly  thirty  years  old;  the  rush  to  the  gold 
mines  about  half  of  thirty;  the  Charterland  is  not  ten  years 
old,  and  it  has  led  to  two  or  three  wars,  including  the  Raid. 

Analyze  its  degrading  effects  on  the  mind  and  temper  of  the 
nation.  Compare  the  early  and  middle  of  the  reign  of  the 
Queen  with  the  last  two  or  three  decades.  Who  will  dare  to 
say  that  its  close  can  compare  with  its  promise  and  its  ma- 
turity— in  poetry,  in  romance,  in  literature,  in  philosophy,  or 
in  science?  Allow  what  we  will  for  the  personal  equation 
whereby  the  elder  naturally  looks  back  to  the  memories  of  the 
temporis  acti;  grant  all  the  tendency  we  have  to  be  slow  to  rec- 
ognize latent  genius  in  the  budding,  still  it  would  be  dishonest 
to  claim  for  recent  years  an  intellect  as  powerful  and  as  solid 
as  that  which  we  knew  in  the  middle  of  the  reign.  I  insist 
on  no  particular  writer,  I  rely  on  no  special  school.  Names 
will  occur  to  all — Dr.  Arnold  and  his  son,  Wordsworth,  Ten- 
nyson, Browning,  Macaulay,  Carlyle,  Thackeray,  Dickens, 
Bulwer,  Disraeli,  Hallam,  Milman,  Freeman,  Froude,  Ruskin. 
the  Brontes,  George  Eliot,  Kingsley,  Trollope.  All  the  work,  or 
all  the  best  and  permanent  work,  of  these  was  completed  and 
had  passed  into  the  fabric  of  English  literature  before  the  Im- 
perialist era  began  some  twenty-five  years  ago.  Have  their 
successors  quite  equalled  them? 


Christianity  at  the  End  of  the  XIX  Century    1 1 

It  is  the  same  story  in  more  abstract  things — in  philosophy, 
in  sociology,  even  in  pure  science,  the  special  pursuit  of  our 
age.  Charles  Darwin,  Stuart  Mill,  Herbert  Spencer,  Profes- 
sor Owen,  Thomas  Huxley,  John  Henry  Newman,  Pusey, 
Keble,  Grote,  Whewell,  Kelvin,  Lyell,  Thirlwall,  Buckle,  Wil- 
berforce,  Jowett,  Maurice,  Bagehot,  Martineau.  Three  or 
four  out  of  the  forty  names  I  have  mentioned  survive  in  ex- 
treme old  age ;  but  even  of  these  their  principal  work  was  com- 
pleted at  the  date  now  taken.  I  do  not  deny  that  many  men  of 
high  distinction  are  living  and  working  still,  and  that  there  are 
still  with  us  men  of  great  promise,  of  whom  much  is  expected. 
But  taking,  as  a  test,  influence  upon  the  age  and  European 
reputation,  the  last  quarter  of  the  present  century  cannot  com- 
pare in  its  intellectual  product  with  the  three  earlier  quarters  of 
this  century.  Name  for  name,  the  intellectual  leaders  of  our 
present  day  cannot  be  named  with  those  that  went  before  them, 
either  in  poetry,  or  in  romance,  or  in  literature,  or  in  science, 
or  in  philosophy,  or  in  ethics,  or  in  religion. 

It  would  be  futile,  of  course,  to  admit  the  current  nonsense 
about  "  decadence  ",  or  "  the  end  of  the  century  " ;  for  the  tone 
of  a  nation  does  not  degenerate  of  its  own  motion,  nor  by  the 
date  of  the  calendar.  It  has  a  cause,  and  the  cause  is  plain. 
No!  When  Imperialism  set  in  about  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago,  we  all  took  to  a  much  more  practical,  combative,  and  ma- 
terialist view  of  life.  We  were  told  to  get  rich,  to  fight,  to 
win  the  game,  and  the  game  was  something  solid  and  sub- 
stantial. To  be  weak  was  to  be  miserable,  as  Satan  told  the 
rebel  angels ;  to  be  poor  was  to  be  a  failure ;  to  make  no  con- 
quests, no  prizes,  no  fortunes,  was  to  own  oneself  a  poor  thing. 
Competition  ruled  everything — education,  sport,  industry  and 
literature.  To  win  prizes  we  had  to  be  up-to-date,  and  we 
grew  year  by  year  more  up-to-date.  We  fell  more  and  more 
under  the  rule  of  the  newspaper  press ;  and  the  press  grew  more 
and  more  noisy,  braggart,  bustling  and  smart.  It  got  so  furi- 
ously up-to-date  that  it  even  announced  events  before  they  had 
happened,  and  smashed  books  before  they  had  been  read.     We 


1 2        Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

all  had  to  live  in  a  perpetual  rattle  which  was  something  like 
a  fair  or  a  race-course,  and  something  like  an  army  of  volun- 
teers on  a  bank-holiday.  The  reveries  of  the  imagination  be- 
came less  easy,  and  fell  out  of  fashion.  The  pace  was  killing. 
Stories  became  shorter  and  shorter,  as  no  one  had  time  for  a 
long  book.  The  "  boss  ",  the  "  gold-bug  ",  the  "  syndicate  ** 
were  terms  imported  across  the  seas,  and  with  the  terms  came 
the  things.  The  press  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  *'  bosses  ", 
then  "  society  "  fell ;  and  soon  the  State  itself  began  to  be  run 
by  the  millionaires  much  as  if  it  were  a  railway  or  a  trust  in  the 
United  States. 

All  this  combined  to  materialize,  to  degrade  the  national  life. 
It  is  not  so  much  that  we  have  glaring  examples  of  folly,  vice, 
extravagance,  brutality,  and  lust.  There  are  such  examples  in 
most  ages,  and  they  may  be  personal,  independent  of  any  gen- 
eral cause.  The  gloomy  feature  of  our  time  is  the  wide  diffu- 
sion of  these  evils  amongst  all  classes  and,  what  is  far  worse, 
the  universal  dying  down  of  high  standards  of  life,  of  generous 
ideals,  of  healthy  tastes — the  recrudescence  of  coarse,  covetous, 
arrogant,  and  braggart  passions.  We  who  live  quiet  lives  far 
apart  from  what  calls  itself  the  great  world  have  no  direct  ex- 
perience of  these  things ;  but  we  cannot  resist  the  common  tes- 
timony of  those  who  know  that  during  the  reign  of  the  Queen, 
wanton  extravagances  in  dress,  in  living,  in  gaieties,  have  never 
been  so  crazy  as  now,  with  such  sordid  devices  to  scrape  to- 
gether the  means  for  extravagance,  such  open  sale  of  rank  and 
person  by  those  who  claim  to  lead  society  and  to  dictate  taste. 

In  such  a  world  it  is  inevitable  that  the  intellectual  and 
aesthetic  aims  should  become  gross  and  materialized.  The 
drama  runs  not  merely  to  vice,  but  to  morbid,  sneaking  forms 
of  vice,  to  unwholesome  melodrama,  to  a  world  of  smart  har- 
lots and  titled  debauchees.  The  least  vicious,  the  most  vulgar, 
symptom  of  this  decadence,  is  the  prevalent  fondness  of  men 
and  women  of  fashion  for  the  slang  of  the  gutter  and  the  slum. 
Popular  novels,  songs,  and  plays  are  composed  in  the  jargon 
current  amongst  costermongers  and  thieves.     Romance  tends 


Christianity  at  the  End  of  the  XIX  Century     13 

to  vignettes  of  sensationalism,  to  the  more  cancerous  forms  of 
debauchery,  and  to  prurient  maunderings  over  sex  problems. 
It  may  be  true  that  there  have  been  ages  more  vicious  and 
brutal  than  our  own ;  and  no  doubt  the  last  years  of  the  Vic- 
torian epoch  are  no  worse  than  the  Georgian  epoch  of  Hogarth 
and  Fielding.  That  is  not  my  argument.  My  contention  is 
that  there  is  to-day,  as  compared  with  the  middle  of  the  present 
reign,  a  sensible  debasement  of  tone.  In  a  famous  passage  of 
declamation  Edmund  Burke  committed  himself  to  the  dubious 
paradox  that  Vice  lost  half  its  evil  in  losing  all  its  grossness. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  in  vain  for  Vice  to  hope  that  by  covering 
its  shame  with  an  apron  of  vulgarity  it  will  succeed  in  hiding 
its  nakedness  from  sight. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  material  and  practical  causes  of  this 
deterioration  of  the  age.  I  will  say  a  few  words  as  to  its 
spiritual  and  intellectual  causes.  All  important  changes  in  the 
world  of  action  are  preceded  by  profound  movements  in  the 
world  of  thought.  The  intellectual  "  reversion  "  to  a  poorer 
t>'pe  in  these  recent  years  is  due  to  a  certain  despairing  return 
to  the  cloudy  intuitionalism,  which  fifty  years  ago  had  fallen 
into  discredit.  Forty  or  fifty  years  ago  the  schools  of  Ben- 
tham  and  his  followers,  as  presented  in  the  Westminster  Re- 
view of  James  Mill  and  John  Stuart  Mill,  of  Professor  Bain 
and  George  H.  Lewes,  of  Herbert  Spencer  and  his  followers, 
of  Grote  and  Cornewall  Lewis,  eminently  that  of  Charles  Dar- 
win and  the  popularization  of  the  philosophy  of  evolution,  and 
finally  the  critical  examination  of  Scripture,  which  was  made 
common  knowledge  in  "  Essays  and  Reviews  " — all  these  had 
established  their  ascendant  in  the  world  of  serious  thoughts, 
and  raised  hopes  of  almost  indefinite  progress  and  authority. 
It  was  an  intellectual  emancipation  which  had  some  kinship 
with  that  of  the  last  century,  in  the  age  of  Hume,  Adam  Smith, 
Voltaire,  and  Diderot.  We  may  call  it  the  Avatar  of  Evolu- 
tion and  of  Logical  Demonstration.  And  under  it  a  brilliant 
efflorescence  arose — in  philosophy,  in  science,  in  economics,  in 
sociology,  and  in  real  religion. 


14         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

The  philosophy  of  Evolution  and  of  Demonstration  prom- 
ised, but  it  did  not  perform.  It  raised  hopes,  but  it  led  to  dis- 
appointment. It  claimed  to  explain  the  world,  and  to  direct 
man.  But  it  left  a  great  blank.  That  blank  was  the  whole 
field  of  Religion,  of  morality,  of  the  sanctions  of  duty.  It  left 
the  mystery  of  the  Future  as  mysterious  as  ever,  and  yet  as  im- 
perative as  ever.  Whatever  philosophy  of  Nature  it  offered, 
it  gave  no  adequate  philosophy  of  Man.  It  was  busy  with  the 
physiology  of  Humanity ;  it  propounded  inconceivable  and  re- 
pulsive guesses  about  the  origin  of  Humanity.  It  attempted 
no  religion  of  Humanity.  Charles  Darwin  thought  that  "  he 
was  generally,  but  not  always,  an  Agnostic."  Stuart  Mill 
fluctuated  between  a  religion  of  Duty  and  a  very  attenuated 
and  sterilized  Theism.  And  Herbert  Spencer  solemnly  an- 
nounced that  the  object  of  religion  could  only  be  the  Unknow- 
able. Hesitations,  doubtings,  double  acrostics  like  this  about 
the  very  central  truths  of  Life  and  Duty,  naturally  caused  plain 
men  and  women  to  turn  away  in  disgust.  Here  we  say  that 
certain,  intelligible,  rational  ideas  about  the  religious  problems 
of  Man's  highest  nature  form  the  very  key-stone  of  philoso- 
phy; that  the  philosopher  who  fails  to  answer  these  problems 
so  as  to  convince  his  questioners  will  convince  them  ultimately 
of  little  else.  Evolution  and  Neo-Christianity  failed  to  give 
any  answer ;  called  themselves  "  Know-nothings,"  prophets  of 
the  Unknowable ;  had  not  made  up  their  own  minds,  and  did 
not  think  it  mattered  much  if  they  did  or  did  not.  The  result 
was  a  wide  and  general  discredit  to  the  entire  philosophy  of 
Evolution  and  the  entire  Theology  of  Neo-Christianity. 

No  precise  date  could  be  given  to  this  reaction,  nor  did  it 
take  any  single  or  definite  form.  No  new  type  of  philosophy 
took  the  place  of  the  discredited  methods.  Within  the  last 
twenty  years  these  latter  have  been  gradually  losing  their 
hold ;  and  vague  thin  kinds  of  Spiritualism  from  time  to  time 
found  acceptance.  There  was  nothing  like  a  new  system,  or 
even  a  definable  tendency,  unless  a  kind  of  metaphysical  fogg^- 
ness  which  uses  grandiloquent  phrases  as  if  they  were  real 


Christianity  at  the  End  of  the  XIX  Century    1 5 

things.  If  we  took  any  date  as  a  mark  it  might  be  found  in  the 
burst  of  welcome  when  Mr.  Balfour's  graceful  book  on  "  The 
Foundations  of  Belief  "  appeared  about  five  years  ago.  There 
was  nothing  either  new  or  solid  in  the  book,  except  the  pa- 
thetic dreaminess  with  which  cynical  pessimism  and  incurable 
doubt  about  all  Truth  was  shown  to  lead  up  to  practical  sup- 
port of  the  Orthodox  Creeds.  That  the  guides  of  public  opin- 
ion announced  this  stale  scepticism  as  giving  new  life  to  phi- 
losophy and  religion,  was  indeed  evidence  how  deeply  the  or- 
thodox creeds  were  undermined,  how  ready  was  the  philosophy 
of  the  day  to  clutch  hold  of  any  cloud  that  seemed  likely  to  re- 
lease it  from  sober  study  of  the  earth.  All  this  was  a  sort 
of  theological  "  confidence  trick.*'  The  philosopher  says  to 
the  simple  inquirer :  "  You  are  so  very  little  sure  of  any  belief, 
and  are  so  likely  to  lose  it*  altogether  in  this  Babylon  of  ours, 
that  you  had  better  trust  me  with  your  faith,  and  I  will  put  it 
away  safe  in  the  Bank  of  the  Church  of  England." 

A  maudlin  philosophy  based  on  nothing  but  vague  aspira- 
tions, hopes,  and  possibilities,  so  that  all  the  central  problems 
of  Life  and  of  Man  ended  in  the  general  formula,  "  After  all, 
perhaps  there  may  be  " ;  this  spread  a  dry-rot  through  the 
mental  fabric.  There  is  to-day  plenty  of  activity,  of  inge- 
nuity, of  prettiness,  of  skill,  as  there  is  in  any  silver  age,  but  of 
robustness,  originality,  inspiration,  is  there  to-day  as  much  as 
we  have  known  and  felt  a  generation  or  two  ago  ?  Take  the 
decade  which  closes  this  century  (1890-1900),  can  any  man 
pretend  that  it  equals  in  power  either  of  the  middle  decades  of 
the  century  (1840- 1860)  in  poetry,  in  literature,  in  science,  in 
philosophy?  A  shifty  and  muddle-headed  kind  of  Spiritual- 
ism has  mentally  made  cowards  of  us  all. 

And,  finally,  to  take  religion,  which  we  are  often  told  dis- 
plays so  striking  a  revival.  In  ceremonial,  in  ecclesiastical 
celebrations,  in  clerical  organization  and  activity,  no  doubt  the 
progress  is  manifest.  The  rites  of  the  Churches,  the  dignity 
of  worship,  the  parade  of  Church  societies,  are  in  full  activity. 
The  Churches  were  never  more  "  in  evidence  **  than  they  are 


1 6         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

to-day.  Their  pretensions  were  never  higher ;  their  rolls  never 
fuller;  their  patrons  never  more  illustrious.  Is  vital  religion 
more  general,  more  effective?  Is  genuine  belief  in  the  creeds 
more  definite  and  clear?  Is  Christianity  more  truly  a  civiliz- 
ing, a  moralizing  force  ?  Who  will  dare  to  say  so  ?  By  vital 
religion  I  mean  not  conventional  phrases  about  getting  to 
Heaven.  I  mean  religion  that  can  purify,  direct,  and  inspire 
Man's  life  on  earth.  By  genuine  belief  in  the  Creeds  I  mean 
literal  acceptance  of  the  three  Creeds  in  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  in  their  plain  sense.  When  I  ask  if  Christianity  is  a 
civilizing  and  moralizing  force,  I  ask  if  it  prevents  us  as  a  peo- 
ple from  injustice  and  oppression,  and  as  men  and  women  from 
the  pride  of  life  and  the  lusts  of  the  flesh. 

We  have  been  dwelling  to-day  on  the  evil  things  in  our  mod- 
ern life,  on  the  chase  after  money,'  the  rampant  love  of  gam- 
bling, the  extravagance,  the  coarseness,  the  materialist  spirit 
growing  on  all  sides.  What  have  the  Churches  done  to  purify 
and  check  all  this?  Who  would  care  if  they  did  try?  Who 
would  believe  them  in  earnest  in  doing  it?  What  were  they 
doing  and  saying  yesterday?  Offering  up  from  ten  thousand 
altars  prayers  to  the  God  of  Battles  to  bless  our  arms,  i.  e.,  that 
he  might  enable  us  to  slaughter  our  enemies  and  possess  their 
land.  Not  a  voice  comes  from  the  official  Churches  to  raise  a 
doubt  as  to  the  justice,  good  faith,  and  Christian  charity  of 
those  who  have  thrust  our  country  into  a  wanton  war  of  spolia- 
tion. Not  a  word  is  breathed  from  their  pulpits  of  respect  for 
the  brave  civilians  who  are  defending  their  homes  and  their 
freedom.  These  Republicans,  we  are  told,  gather  round  their 
hearthstones,  whole  families  together,  father,  sons,  grandsons, 
kneeling  down  in  prayer — they  do  sincerely  believe  in  their 
God  and  his  readiness  to  hear  them — and  then  wives,  sisters, 
and  daughters  arm  them  for  the  front;  and  ere  they  engage 
in  battle,  their  camp  rings  with  hymns  of  prayer  and  praise. 
At  home  our  own  preparation  for  war  is  sounded  in  slang  from 
drinking  saloons,  which  is  echoed  back  in  pale  and  conven- 
tional litanies  from  the  altars  of  the  State  Church.     This  is 


Christianity  at  the  End  of  the  XIX  Century    1 7 

how  Christianity  works  out  in  practice  at  the  close  of  the  nine- 
tennth  century. 

This  State  Church  and  the  Creed,  to  the  husk  of  which  it 
still  clings,  never  seem  so  hollow  or  so  corrupt  as  in  the  part 
they  play  in  some  national  crisis  such  as  an  unjust  war.  Whilst 
sober  men  of  all  parties  and  opinions  can  feel  some  doubt  or 
even  searchings  of  heart;  whilst  soldiers,  statesmen,  and  the 
public  are  open  to  remonstrance,  the  only  order  of  men  which 
is  ever  ready  to  supply  the  majority  with  hypocritical  glozings 
is  the  official  priesthood.  It  sinks  till  it  becomes  the  mere  do- 
mestic chaplain  of  the  governing  class — a  sort  of  black  police 
that  has  to  stand  by  the  Government — right  or  wrong. 
''  Theirs  not  to  reason  why,"  as  the  poet  says.  It  was  an 
archbishop  who  told  us  the  other  day  that  God  himself  "  made 
battles."  Improving  upon  the  old  Hebrew  war-songs  about 
the  God  of  Battles,  we  are  now  told  that  the  God  of  mercy  is 
the  author  of  war,  as  a  means  of  grace  towards  a  higher  mor- 
ality. Why!  No  medicine  man,  no  witch-finder  in  Central 
Africa,  hounding  on  a  savage  chief  to  exterminate  a  neigh- 
bouring tribe,  could  utter  a  more  atrocious  blasphemy. 

A  church,  a  creed  which  can  chant  such  a  requiem  as  this 
over  the  grave  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  need  trouble  us  no 
more.  It  is  left  henceforth  to  faith  in  humanity  to  do  what  it 
can  to  curb  the  passions  of  the  strong  who  are  thirsting  io 
crush  the  weak;  to  teach  what  is  the  true  glory  of  civilized 
men ;  to  preach  the  Gospel  of  Peace,  which  the  apostate  preach- 
ers of  Christ  have  turned  into  a  bye-word,  and  have  made  a 
war  cry.  These  high  priests  of  the  New  Imperialism  have 
forsworn  their  own  religion  and  forgotten  their  own  sacred 
books.  Let  them  turn  back  in  their  Bibles  to  the  story  of  Ahab 
and  Naboth,  and  reflect  that  it  was  the  apostate  priests  who 
leapt  upon  the  altar  and  called  from  morning  even  until  noon, 
saying  "  O  Baal,  hear  us."  But  it  was  the  task  of  the  true 
priest  to  say  to  the  King  in  his  pride,  ''  Hast  thou  killed  and 
also  taken  possession  ?  " 


Sovereignty  the  Fundamental    Conception 
in  Christianity 


Sovereignty  the  Fundamental  Con 
ception  in  Christianity 


BY 


The  Reverend  HENRY  A.  STIMSON,  D.D. 

THE  advanced  fundamental  conception,  in  both  theology 
and  philosophy,  is  that  man  is  a  unit.  So  long  as 
philosophy  looked  upon  man's  mental  and  moral  traits  as  so 
many  accretions  produced  largely  by  outside  conditions  and 
forces — products  which  when  taken  together  make  up  the  man 
— it  was  inevitable  that  theology  should  discuss  the  attributes 
of  God  as  so  many  distinct  and  separable  qualities.  But  now 
that  a  sounder  philosophy  recognizes  that  man  is  not  thus  a 
product  but  rather  that  he  exists  quite  apart  from  his  environ- 
ment and  has  a  unity  that  is  all  his  own,  it  is  clear  that  strictly 
speaking  no  one  attribute  of  character  is  prior  to  another  or 
more  fundamental.  Logically  speaking  or  for  purposes  of 
study^  one  may  be  held  separate  from  the  rest,  but  as  in  the 
body  no  organ  can  be  completely  known  or  its  functions  and 
diseases  thoroughly  understood  without  a  study  of  the  whole 
body,  so,  in  a  much  closer  and  narrower  sense,  in  morals,  the  ele- 
ments of  character,  whether  in  God  or  man,  are  not  to  be  known 
apart  one  from  another.  Confusion  arises  and  fresh  strife 
of  words,  when  this  essential  oneness  is  forgotten  and  various 
traits  of  the  divine  character  are  set  one  over  against  the  other 
or  made  exclusively  the  basis  of  any  phase  of  theological  teach- 
ing. Sovereignty  and  love,  as  justice  and  grace,  are  alike  in- 
volved in  the  nature  and  character  of  God.  Separation  between 
them  cannot  occur,  and  appears  possible  only  in  our  thought. 
They  are  simply  God  viewed  in  different  relations  and  acting  in 
certain  directions.  All  of  God  is  in  each.  As  philosophy  looks 
upon  man  as  an  original  creation,  a  distinct  personality,  who 
exists  apart  from  sensation  and  to  whom  sensations  are  re- 

21 


22         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

ferred,  so  theology  starts  with  a  conception  of  God  as  the  one 
and  indivisible  source  from  which  all  character  originates. 

Having  recognized  this,  it  is  still  true  that  one  side  of  the 
divine  nature  may  be  emphasized  at  the  expense  of  another 
when  a  system  either  of  ethics  or  of  theology  is  constructed; 
and  according  as  the  one  attribute  or  relation  of  God  to  His 
universe  be  so  emphasized,  the  system  will  be  one-sided,  and  in 
its  acceptance  will  be  found  to  produce  types  of  character  which, 
whether  strong  or  weak,  will  prove  to  be  more  or  less  narrow 
and  incomplete.  This  has  occurred  in  regard  to  the  sovereignty 
of  God,  in  the  theology  of  the  past.  Calvinism  without  doubt 
over-emphasized  it,  and  the  character  produced  was  both 
strenuous  and  hard.  That  it  has  been  the  mightiest  force  in 
the  production  of  the  modern  world,  its  enemies  abundantly 
witness.  When  Unitarians  like  James  Russell  Lowell  and 
Senator  Hoar  are  heard  boasting  before  distinguished  audi- 
ences that  they  have  Calvinistic  blood  in  their  veins,  and  saying 
— the  one  that  ''  Calvinism  has  produced  some  of  the  noblest 
characters  the  world  has  ever  seen,  the  very  fibre  and  substance 
of  which  enduring  commonwealths  are  made ; "  the  other, 
"  When  you  take  out  of  the  history  of  the  last  three  centuries 
what  has  been  wrought  by  Calvinists  and  those  who  have 
thought  with  them,  there  remains  little  else  worth  talking 
about ;  "  when  the  glowing  panegyric  of  Rufus  Choate  is  still 
a  part  of  our  best  literature,  "  I  ascribe  to  that  five  years  in 
Geneva,  when  many  flocked  to  be  taught  by  John  Calvin,  an  in- 
fluence which  has  changed  the  history  of  the  world ;  I  seem  to 
myself  to  trace  to  it  as  an  influence  on  the  English  character,  a 
new  theology,  new  politics,  a  new  tone  of  character,  the  open- 
ing of  another  era  of  truth  and  of  liberty ;  I  seem  to  myself  to 
trace  to  it  the  great  civil  war  of  England,  the  republican  con- 
stitution framed  in  the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower,  the  divinity  of 
Jonathan  Edwards,  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  the  independence 
of  America ;  "  when  one  of  Calvin's  latest  German  biographers 
writes,  "  Seldom  is  human  work  so  rigorously  ordered  accord- 
ing to  fundamental  truths  as  that  accomplished  by  the  Genevan 


Sovereignty  the  Fundamental  Conception      23 

reformers ;  it  rested  upon  a  marvellous  simplicity,  clearness  and 
unshakable  firmness  of  conviction;"  when  Guizot  speaks  of 
Calvin  as  *'  the  great  Christian  of  France;  "  when  historians 
like  Froude  and  Macaulay  cannot  write  modern  history  without 
making  their  careful  reckoning  with  John  Calvin ;  when  above 
all,  enemies  of  the  faith  like  Renan  declare  that  "  Calvin  is  but 
the  shadow  cast  by  St.  Paul,"  and  that  the  writings  of  Paul 
are  the  causes  of  what  he  calls  the  principal  defects  of  Christian 
theology;  surely  the  men  who  believe  that  Paul  had  the  mind 
of  Christ  and  spoke  and  wrote  as  he  was  moved  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  are  not  the  ones  to  cast  disrespect  on  either  the  man  or 
the  theology  which  stands  as  the  fons  et  origo,  the  source  and 
abiding  impulse  of  what  we  hold  most  dear. 

But,  for  all  this,  that  theology  was  incomplete,  and  there  has 
been  the  inevitable  reaction.  We  have  now  been  living  for 
some  time  under  the  influence  of  a  theology  which  has  delighted 
to  call  itself  Christo-centric.  It  has  violently  repudiated  not 
only  the  extreme  doctrines  of  Calvinism,  but  also  the  concep- 
tion of  sovereignty  as  central  in  a  theological  system,  and  has 
substituted  for  this,  love.  The  movement  has  not  been  with- 
out its  distinctive  advantages,  and  in  its  entirety  constitutes  an 
unquestioned  contribution  both  to  the  progress  of  Christianity 
and  to  theologic  thought.  But  it  also  has  its  limitations.  We 
would  give  it  all  credit  for  its  emphasis  upon  human  brother- 
hood and  the  variety  and  amplitude  of  the  philanthropic  side 
of  the  Christian  institutions  which  if  it  has  not  produced  it 
certainly  has  developed.  '*  Sweetness  and  light "  may  not  be 
the  most  commanding  or  the  most  costly  features  of  Christian 
character,  but  they  are  very  precious  and  very  attractive.  The 
close  of  the  century  would  give  less  evidence  of  the  oncoming 
of  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  would  show  far  less  of  cheerfulness 
and  of  courage,  if  it  were  not  for  this  gospel  which  makes  so 
much  of  the  divine  love.  But  when  this  is  said,  there  remains 
a  necessity  of  pointing  out  the  weakness  of  what  is  simply  a  re- 
action, and  of  compelling  it  as  at  best  but  an  incomplete  though 
valuable  conception,  to  orient  itself  to  the  fuller  and  larger 


24         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

truth.  The  theology  that  would  make  love  its  starting  point, 
can  claim  no  more  honorable  distinction  than  its  right  to  the 
term  Christo-centric.  But  as  Principal  Fairbairn  has  well 
pointed  out,  a  Christo-centric  theology  is  a  secondary  and  de- 
rived theology.  For  back  of  Christ  is  the  conception  of  the 
Father  from  whom  He  came,  whose  message  He  delivered, 
whose  will  He  did,  and  to  whom  again  He  returned.  Upon 
whatever  inductive  study  of  man  and  of  society  it  may  rest,  or 
from  whatever  philosophic  conception  it  may  proceed,  any 
theology,  whether  calling  itself  new  or  practical  or  social,  that 
eventually  turns  to  Jesus  Christ  as  its  center  and  chief  expo- 
nent, will  find  itself  under  the  compulsion  of  going  back  to  the 
same  source  from  which  He  delighted  to  declare  that  He  drew 
His  own  theology.  This  compels  us  to  come  to  another  funda- 
mental conception  than  that  of  love.  Without  this,  the  descent 
from  a  true  religion  to  what  is  only  an  ethical  cult,  is  far  too 
easy.  Without  it  religion  takes  on  the  characteristic  of  a  coun- 
cil of  perfection.  It  loses  its  grip  upon  the  conscience;  it  re- 
laxes its  vigorous  and  responsible  restraints  upon  the  life.  The 
ethics  that  issues  from  it  is  at  bottom  a  sentiment,  and  philoso- 
phy is  seen  resting  on  utilitarianism,  or  jauntily  venturing  a 
justification  of  hedonism.  Under  this  protection  we  have  had 
in  these  days  not  a  few  frivolous  and  superficial  thinkers,  stand- 
ing alongside  of  Christianity,  who  as  Dorner  describes  them, 
"  being  devoid  of  feeling  for  that  which  is  lofty,  can  find  no 
other  way  of  dealing  with  it  than  dragging  it  into  the  dust, 
who,  blind  to  the  true  light  and  intoxicated  with  a  fancy  of 
enlightenment,  pronounce  judgment  upon  the  profoundest 
questions  which  have  stirred  and  enriched  the  human  mind  for 
thousands  of  years.* 

However  we  look  at  religion,  whether  at  its  source  in  God 
or  at  its  result  in  man,  character  is  the  essential.  A  true  the- 
ology cannot  be  narrower  than  this.  Because  character  is  the 
starting  point  and  the  end,  sovereignty  based  on  character  is  the 
consequent  relation  of  God  to  the  universe.  He  is  to  be  loved 
*  Dorner,  Person  of  Christ,  Vol.  V,  p.  30. 


Sovereignty  the  Fundamental  Conception      25 

and  obeyed  because  He  alone  is  worthy.  He  has  the  right,  and 
no  other  has  right  in  opposition  to  Him.  The  Bible  declares 
that  the  chief  end  of  God  is  to  promote  His  own  glory,  but  it 
also  tells  us  that  His  highest  glory  is  realized  in  redemption, 
and  that  redemption  means  the  establishment  of  a  kingdom  in 
which  God  is  supreme,  a  kingdom  of  love  and  grace,  because  a 
kingdom  in  which  every  member  yields  absolute  surrender  to 
Him.  The  emphasis  of  the  Old  Testament  upon  God's  holi- 
ness is  the  foundation  of  the  claim  of  God's  supremacy.  The 
Israelites  were  surrounded  by  heathen  nations,  addicted  to  de- 
grading forms  of  idolatry.  Their  gods  were  like  themselves, 
according  to  the  conceptions  of  their  own  votaries,  murderers, 
liars,  adulterers,  revengeful,  cruel.  Over  against  them  was  the 
God  of  Israel, — not  simply  the  god  of  a  henotheistic  faith,  a 
god  who  can  tolerate  other  gods, — but  the  one  God.  That  was 
the  watchword  of  Israel.  "  The  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord." 
To  worship  any  other  god  was  adultery^,  and  the  punishment 
death.  He  was  a  separate  God,  a  being  of  perfect  goodness; 
in  this  respect  alone  in  the  universe.  Their  conception  of  Him 
as  dwelling  in  the  light  inaccessible,  one  whose  pure  eyes  did 
not  behold  iniquity,  before  whom  sinners  could  not  stand,  was 
fundamental  and  constant.  From  the  first  He  did  right,  and 
men  who  would  serve  Him  must  do  the  same.  *'  I  the  Lord 
am  holy,  be  ye  therefore  holy."  All  the  institutions  of  the 
Jewish  Church  were  to  emphasize  this  truth.  The  tabernacle, 
the  temple,  the  consecration  and  service  of  the  priests,  the  elab- 
orate ritual,  the  anointing  of  the  kings,  the  call  and  inspiration 
of  the  prophets,  all  turned  the  thoughts  of  the  worshipper  to 
the  glorious  holiness  of  the  one  God,  whom  to  know  aright  is 
life  and  immortality.  His  present  reign  was  the  greatest  bless- 
ing, His  final  dominion  was  to  be  established  in  righteousness 
and  in  truth.  Justice  and  judgment  were  the  inhabitants  of 
His  throne. 

Love  appears  in  all  this.  As  Kittel  says,  "  The  religion 
founded  by  Moses  knows  its  God  not  as  the  mighty  potentate 
but  as  the  life-giving  helper  in  whom  the  love  of  God  is  in- 


26         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

volved ;  it  knows  Him  as  the  God  sui  generis^  who  allows  of 
the  existence  of  no  other,  and  in  this  exclusiveness  involves 
His  absolute  unity;  it  recognizes  Him  as  the  dispenser  of  jus- 
tice, and  the  Judge,  from  the  loftiness  of  whose  commands  and 
judicial  sentences  it  defines  His  holiness  and  covenant-faithful- 
ness. It  acknowledges  Him  as  the  non-sensuous  and  spiritual, 
and  thus  completes  its  protest  against  the  prevalent  forms  of 
faith."* 

God  delights  in  His  people,  but  that  delight  rests  upon  their 
allegiance  to  Him.  It  was  a  narrow  conception  of  God,  if  you 
will,  that  filled  the  mind  of  the  Israelite,  who  regarded  himself 
as  separated  from  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  And  it  is  true  that 
the  distinctive  mark  of  the  Old  Testament  dispensation  is  its 
particularism,  while  that  of  the  New  is  its  catholicity;  but  that 
catholicity  is  obtained  through  the  redemption  of  the  world  in 
which  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom  is  preached  and  the  world  is 
won  to  a  new  and  abiding  allegiance,  divine  sovereignty  is  es- 
tablished, and  men  are  blessed  through  the  coming  of  Him 
whose  right  it  is  to  reign.  "  God  so  loved  the  world,"  is  the 
new  gospel.  And  by  that  revelation,  men  who  as  sinners  were 
without  God  and  without  hope,  are  brought  into  loving  sur- 
render to  Him  who  died  for  them.  He  redeemed  men  in  His 
death,  but  He  saves  them  by  His  life.  They  are  to  live  in  Him 
as  living  in  a  kingdom  the  head  and  life  of  which  is  the  living 
and  reigning  Christ.  Thus  love  in  its  fulness  becomes  the  rev- 
elation and  the  instrument  by  which  and  in  which  the  right  of 
God  to  His  supreme  place  in  the  heart  and  life  of  man  is  estab- 
lished. This  right  lies  back  of  the  revelation.  The  divine  sov- 
ereignty discloses  itself  in  the  divine  love.  Theologians  con- 
tend to  prove  that  the  fatherhood  and  the  love  are  universal,  but 
there  can  be  no  question  about  the  sovereignty.  It  can  suffer 
no  restriction.  Rebellion  only  emphasizes  it.  The  wantonness 
of  sin  lies  in  its  attempt  to  deny  it.  Conscience  is  its  herald, 
and  death  is  the  gate  through  which  the  self-accused  soul 
passes  tremblingly  to  its  dread  account.     Rejected  love  is  so 

*  Kittel,  The  History  of  the  Hebrews,  Vol.  I,  p.  249. 


Sovereignty  the  Fundamental  Conception      27 

terrible  because  it  is  the  love  of  our  God.  Love  can  at  last  be 
turned  into  wrath,  because  we  are  dealing  not  only  with  our 
heavenly  Father  but  with  our  divine  King. 

To  separate  this  conception  of  God  from  all  that  is  loving 
and  tender  is  to  pervert  and  degrade  it.  The  very  idea  of  sov- 
ereignty rests  upon  the  apprehension  of  the  divine  character 
in  which  all  goodness  and  truth,  all  sweetness  and  light,  no 
less  than  all  righteousness  and  justice,  are  united.  We  are 
not  content  to  limit  our  thought  to  that  aspect  of  the  divine 
nature  to  which  our  conscious  need  cries  out;  we  cannot  be 
satisfied  with  the  thought  alone  of  the  divine  and  pardoning 
love.  Our  soul  is  of  the  nature  of  God.  We  look  beyond  our 
need,  we  grasp  the  future,  we  anticipate  immortality,  we  long 
for  the  ineffable  glories  into  which  redeeming  love  shall  at  last 
usher  us.  There  we  behold  the  King  in  His  glory.  He  is  sur- 
rounded with  the  multitude  of  the  redeemed,  and  their  song, 
it  is  true,  is  of  the  Lamb  that  was  slain.  That  is  their  especial 
contribution  to  the  glory  of  the  hour.  It  is  their  peculiar  tribute 
of  praise.  But  they  are  not  the  only  worshippers,  nor  by  any 
means  the  chief,  in  that  great  day.  The  angels  and  archangels, 
the  principalities  and  powers  in  heavenly  places  give  place  in 
their  praise  but  for  a  moment  to  hear  and  join  in  the  new  song. 
They  recognize  in  it  a  transcription  of  the  song  they  have  been 
singing  from  the  foundation  of  the  world.  The  supreme  glory 
of  the  hour  is  the  delivering  up  by  the  triumphant  Christ  of 
His  finished  work,  the  glorified  kingdom,  to  the  Father.  "  And 
the  Son  also  Himself  shall  be  subject  unto  Him  that  put  all 
things  under  Him,  that  God  may  be  all  and  in  all."  Thus  love 
accomplishes  its  work  in  the  accepted  sovereignty  which  has 
at  last  won  all  things  unto  itself. 


Love  the  Fundamental  Idea  in  Christianity 


Love    the     Fundamental     Idea    in 
Christianity 


The  Reverend  FRANK  CRANE 

IS  love  or  sovereignty  the  fundamental  idea  in  Christianity? 
This  is  the  question  set  before  us,  and  it  is  one  whose  an- 
swer covers  the  entire  history  of  Christian  thought,  from  Jesus 
until  now.  The  inner  history  of  theology,  indeed,  has  been  but 
the  story  of  the  struggle  of  the  human  mind  to  shake  itself 
loose  from  the  cramping,  regulative  idea  of  God  as  a  Sov- 
ereign, into  the  liberty  and  stimulative  development  of  the 
idea  of  God  as  a  Father. 

The  keynote  of  the  intellectual  system  of  Jesus,  as  far  as  He 
can  be  said  to  have  had  any  intellectual  system,  was  that  our 
relations  to  the  Creator  are  to  be  set  right  chiefly  by  allowing 
the  idea  of  His  fatherhood  to  swallow  up  the  idea  of  His  king- 
ship. He  taught  that  the  souls  of  men  are  to  come  into  direct 
communion  with  the  Supreme  Being  in  all  the  free  affec- 
tion of  sonship.  It  was  the  apparent  looseness  of  this  notion, 
the  supposedly  dangerous  freedom  it  allowed,  that  shocked 
the  Pharisee  and  caused  Jesus's  rejection  by  the  Jewish  people. 
They  could  not  see  that  sonship  meant  anything  else  than 
license.  Puerile  themselves,  they  felt  that  nothing  could  con- 
trol them  but  law,  and  they  were  unable  to  comprehend  how 
love  could  regulate.  Love,  in  any  degree,  is  but  desire,  and 
the  world,  until  Christ — and  alas!  for  the  most  part  until  this 
day,  has  failed  to  grasp  the  sublime  truth  that  desire,  which  in 
the  natural  human  heart  is  the  cause  of  all  sin  and  seems  to  be 
*'  set  on  fire  of  hell,"  can  be  cleansed,  transformed  into  a  divine 
guide  and  made  to  be  the  vicegerent  of  God  in  the  life.  The 
transition  from  law  to  love  is  so  immense  that,  in  two  thou- 
sand years,  mankind  is  still  nonplussed,  amazed,  incredulous  at 
the  simple  declaration  of  Jesus. 

31 


32         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

The  apostolic  church  faced  the  same  foe  that  confronted  the 
Founder  of  their  faith.  St.  Paul  rapidly  assumed  the  dom- 
inancy  of  the  early  church  because  he  most  clearly  apprehended 
the  meaning  of  Jesus  and  translated  it  into  the  brilliant  dia- 
lectic of  the  Greeks.  It  was  his  main  theme  that  the  law  had 
passed  away,  being  superseded  by  the  personal  influence  of 
Jesus  manifested  through  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  fulfilled  the 
law.  Inspired  by  this  conception,  he  flung  open  the  doors  of 
the  church  to  the  Gentiles,  to  ''  all  men  everywhere."  In  this 
he  was  met  and  opposed  by  the  same  reactionary  spirit  which 
had  slain  Jesus:  jealousy  for  the  system  which  governed  by 
rules  and  laws  lay  in  wait  for  the  Master  at  every  turn  and  at 
last  had  His  blood,  and  the  same  jealousy  dogged  the  footsteps 
of  the  chief  apostle,  sought  to  divide  the  church  behind  him 
by  schism,  and  to  stir  up  the  heathen  before  him  into  riot. 
Everywhere  the  bitterest  enemies  of  the  new  church  were  not 
the  sins  and  passions  of  the  common  people,  but  the  narrow 
zeal  and  literalism  of  those  who  clung  to  the  outgrown  legali- 
ties of  Judaism. 

Passing  next  to  the  church  in  the  subsequent  ages  we  find 
another  great  conflict,  that  of  the  East  against  the  West,  the 
Greek  against  the  Latin.  Underneath  all  the  smoke  and  con- 
fusion of  the  theological  battles  of  that  day,  down  below  the 
multitude  of  non-essentials  that  seemed  at  times  to  be  the 
causes  of  dispute,  lay  this  same  issue  which  had  been  the  root- 
cause  of  trouble  in  the  days  of  Jesus  and  of  Paul :  to  wit,  Is 
religion  the  influence  of  the  loving  presence  of  God  among 
men,  or  is  it  a  rule  given  to  men  by  a  distant  God  ?  The  Greek 
theologians  as  a  rule  stood  for  the  immanence,  the  Latin  for 
the  transcendence  of  God. 

The  next  great  epoch  in  the  life  of  Christian  thought  was 
the  Reformation,  a  period  which,  roughly  speaking,  covers  the 
time  from  Luther  in  the  fourteenth  century  to  Wesley  in  the 
eighteenth,  reaching  indeed  until  now,  for  our  religious 
thought  is  still  under  the  cast  given  it  by  the  great  contro- 
versies of  the  four  centuries  mentioned.     Outwardly  the  Ref- 


Love  the  Fundamental  Idea 


33 


ormation  seems  to  have  been  a  revolt  against  ecclesiastical  au- 
thority, to  have  been  concerned  mainly  with  matters  of  form 
and  government.  But,  at  bottom,  there  was  the  same  old 
casus  belli  under  new  conditions.  Luther  had  at  first  no 
thought  of  separating  from  the  church;  he  sought  only  to 
throw  off  the  unscriptural  yoke  of  tradition  and  restore  to  the 
soul  its  immediate  privilege  of  immediate  access  to  the  Father 
by  faith,  yet  the  reaction  he  awakened  cried  out  against  him  as 
a  subverter  of  authority,  of  law  and  of  rule  and  he  was 
forced  out.  In  the  reformed  churches  the  same  old  zeal  for 
the  law  and  jealousy  of  God's  sovereignty  soon  became  mani- 
fested, even  as  in  the  church  from  which  they  rebelled,  and 
before  long  the  iron  logic  of  Anselm  and  Augustine  became 
the  controlling  idea  in  Protestantism,  being  revised  and  adapted 
by  Calvin. 

The  next  and  last  period  was  what  is  called  the  Revival  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  in  which  John  Wesley  is  the  central 
figure.  His  theme  was  holiness,  which  was  but  another  phase 
of  the  old  theme  of  Jesus — Fatherhood;  of  Paul — Grace,  not 
law ;  of  the  Greek  Fathers — God's  immanence ;  and  of  Luther 
— justification  by  faith.  John  Wesley  strove  to  remain 
a  churchman — but  they  would  have  driven  him  out;  just  as 
L,uther  said:  '^ Ich  bin  ein  frommer  mbnch  gewesen"  and 
would  have  so  remained ;  just  as  Clement  of  Alexandria  longed 
for  unity  with  the  Latin  bishops;  just  as  Paul  loved  and 
pleaded  with  Israel ;  just  as  Jesus  "  came  unto  His  own " 
brethren  in  the  flesh. 

In  all  these  succeeding  upheavals  in  Christian  history  one 
can  observe  a  single  mighty  idea  now  struggling  up  for  recog- 
nition and  again  cast  down,  overwhelmed  by  the  powerful  re- 
actionary force  against  which  it  warred.  That  idea  was  that 
God's  love  operating  immediately  upon  the  human  soul  is  the 
essence  of  religion,  is  the  dynamics  of  religion ;  as  opposed  to, 
or  rather  as  superseding,  the  idea  that  religion  has  its  power 
in  God's  sovereignty  which  imposes  upon  us  certain  rules  of 
conduct  and  obligations  of  opinion.     In  each  instance  the  re- 


34         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

action  apparently  conquered.  Jesus  was  put  to  death  and  his 
disciples  scattered.  Paul  and  the  Greek  system  he  taught 
were  utterly  routed  by  the  Latin  bishops  who  deftly  twisted 
the  reasonings  of  the  chief  apostle  into  arguments  for  their 
own  artificial  framework  of  dogma;  the  protestant  church 
after  Luther  was  safely  caged  by  Calvin  in  his  iron  box  of 
thought;  and  the  movement  under  Wesley,  for  lack  of  in- 
tellectual acumen  or  courage,  speedily  fell  back  into  the  use  of 
the  identical  old  materialism  of  theologic  expression. 

And  yet  the  same  spirit  stirs  to-day  in  the  air.  In  a  thou- 
sand ways  it  betrays  its  insistence.  The  warm  and  gentle 
words  of  the  Master  remain,  the  fiery  protests  of  Paul  re- 
main; we  cannot  escape  them;  and  more  and  more  are  men 
coming  to  see  that  the  only  thought  which  can  win  the  world, 
and  which  can  develop  and  not  stunt  mankind,  is  *'  Immanuel 
— God  with  us !  "  In  the  twentieth  century  will  come  the  next 
upheaval  and,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  the  thought  of  Christendom 
will  at  length  desert  the  *'  schoolmaster  "  and  come  to  Christ, 
will  at  length  lay  aside  the  last  hampering  bands  of  Hebraistic, 
Latin,  Puritanic  legalism,  and  come  out  into  the  largeness  and 
liberty  of  sonship  with  God,  will  at  length  be  enabled  to 
"  stand  fast  in  the  liberty  wherewith  Christ  hath  made  us  free, 
and  be  not  entangled  again  with  the  yoke  of  bondage." 

Let  us  now  take  up,  more  particularly,  the  teachings  of 
Jesus  and  of  Paul,  and  see  how  their  whole  trend  was  from  Sov- 
ereignty to  Love,  from  Law  to  Liberty,  from  Bondage  to  Son- 
ship. 

In  the  Old  Testament  the  prevailing  words  for  Deity  are  Je- 
hovah, Creator,  the  Almighty,  the  Most  High,  God,  Lord  and 
the  like,  all  of  which  bespeak  sovereignty  and  impress  us  with 
the  idea  of  His  power  over  us.  Comparatively  few  are  the 
times  He  is  spoken  of  as  a  Father,  Lover,  Husband  and  Friend. 
The  Hebrew  notion  of  God  was  that  of  a  Ruler  who  gives 
laws  for  His  subjects  and  who  rewards  and  punishes  them  ac- 
cording as  they  keep  or  violate  His  commandments.  Oc- 
casionally there  breaks  out  in  David  or  Isaiah  a  pathetic  cry 


Love  the  Fundamental  Idea  35 

of  love;  *'  My  soul  thirsteth  for  the  living  God;  "  "  Doubtless 
thou  art  our  Father,  though  Abraham  be  ignorant  of  us ;  " 
but  the  transcendence  of  God  is  the  principal  theme  of  the 
ancient  scriptures.  Turning  to  the  New  Testament  we  come 
at  once  into  a  different  atmosphere.  The  transcendent  God 
has  come  to  live  with  men.  The  Word  is  made  flesh  and 
dwells  among  us  and  we  behold  His  glory.  With  awe  and 
with  rising  doubts  we  see  Him,  whom  the  heavens  could  not 
contain,  going  about  doing  good.  When  one  of  us  speaks  to 
Him  of  our  perplexity  He  answers :  ^'  Have  I  been  so  long 
time  with  you,  and  yet  hast  thou  not  known  Me,  Philip?  He 
that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father." 

This  Man  wins  and  governs  His  disciples  by  no  laws,  but  by 
the  attraction  of  His  own  person.  He  does  not  say:  "  Do  this 
and  that,  and  live,"  but  "  Follow  Me,  come  unto  Me  and  find 
rest,  trust  Me  and  receive  life."  The  Christ-rule  is  not  law, 
it  is  the  power  of  character. 

The  notion  of  divine  transcendence  and  majesty  is  still 
there,  but  it  is  suffused  with  the  beatific  conception  of  His 
immanence :  the  second  half  of  the  prophet's  paradox  is  made 
plain :  ''  I  dwell  in  the  high  and  holy  place,  and  also  with  him 
that  is  contrite  of  heart." 

The  perfection  of  the  law  is  not  marred,  but  it  is  made  to 
be  no  longer  only  a  law  from  a  God  above  but  also  a  law  from 
a  God  within :  not  a  law  regulating  bad  desire,  but  a  law  origi- 
nating good  desires  that  overpower  the  bad.  The  law  shall 
never  pass  away :  but  it  passes  in. 

Upon  Jesus's  lips  the  commonest  word  of  Deity  is  Father; 
He  teaches  us  to  pray,  saying:  ''Our  Father;"  He  alludes 
often  to  "My  Father;"  He  reminds  us  of  ''your  heavenly 
Father."  The  argument  from  the  lily  and  the  sparrow  gets 
its  cogency  from  the  subsumption  that  we  are  children  dear 
to  the  Father  heart.  We  are  urged  to  do  good  to  both  friends 
and  enemies  "  that  we  may  be  the  children  of  our  Father,  whose 
rain  falls  on  the  just  and  the  unjust."  In  fine,  the  whole  regu- 
lation of  conduct  is  to  spring  from  a  desire  to  please  Him 


36         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

who  loves  us  so.  We  are  to  do  good  and  we  are  not  to  do  evil 
because  thus  our  love  to  our  Father  prompts  us,  rather  than 
because  we  get  rewarded  on  the  one  hand  and  punished  on  the 
other.  For  the  woman  taken  in  sin  He  has  no  word  of  con- 
demnation, but  only  those  of  loving  pity.  He  will  not  join  m 
condemning  the  extravagance  of  her  who  broke  for  Him  the 
box  of  costly  perfume,  but  He  perceives  the  love  and  ignores 
the  error,  and  says :  "  Let  her  alone — she  hath  done  what  she 
could."  Even  when  He  meets  the  traitorous  Peter,  after  that 
apostle's  shameful  denial  of  his  Friend,  He  has  no  word  of  re- 
proach, but  only,  ''  Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  lovest  thau  Me?  " 

In  all  this  we  cannot  fail  to  notice  that  Jesus  has  put  men 
upon  an  entirely  different  footing  with  God,  a  footing  of  loving 
friendship,  not  of  timid  service.  "  Henceforth,"  He  said,  "  I 
call  you  not  servants  but  friends." 

The  only  instances  in  which  the  Master  blazed  in  wrath 
were  those  when  He  came  into  contact  with  the  Pharisees, 
who  stood  for  the  old  literalism,  who,  in  their  eagerness  to  up- 
hold the  rulership  of  God,  had  extended  the  law  into  intoler- 
able details,  and  whose  pride  as  chief-servants  would  not  brook 
the  entrance  of  sons. 

It  is,  however,  in  St.  Paul's  writings  that  we  find  the  su- 
premacy of  love  set  forth  with  Hellenistic  clearness  and  with 
passionate  force.  If  the  careful  reader  of  Paul  were  asked, 
what  is  the  pervading  theme  of  the  great  apostle's  preach- 
ing, he  could  but  answer :  ^*  It  is  that  the  Law  has  been  super- 
seded by  Grace."  And  what  is  grace?  It  is  nothing  but  the 
"  loving  favor "  of  God,  the  helpful  influence  of  His  per- 
sonality upon  men. 

God's  relation  to  us  as  Sovereign  is  represented  in  the  law. 
This  law  has  been,  according  to  Paul,  "  disannulled,"  and  con- 
sequently our  relation  to  God  as  subjects  has  been  discon- 
tinued, its  place  being  taken  by  a  better  relation,  that  of  sons 
to  a  father,  which  works  a  higher  and  deeper  righteousness 
than  the  law,  preserving  all  the  moralities  of  the  law  and  giv- 


Love  the  Fundamental  Idea 


37 


ing  to  them  power  and  life.  ''  What  the  law  could  not  do," 
he  says,  "  God  did  in  the  person  of  His  Son." 

This  is  precisely  the  difference  between  the  old  "  covenant  " 
and  the  new.  A  covenant  represents  the  condition  or  terms 
upon  which  the  parties  stand  toward  each  other.  The  old 
covenant  (or  testament)  was  an  arrangement  by  which  God 
as  Sovereign  agreed  to  give  certain  blessings,  provided  that 
men  as  subjects  obeyed  certain  rules.  That  covenant  failed; 
it  would  not  work;  it  was  ''weak  through  the  flesh;"  by  it 
mankind  failed  to  work  righteousness.  Consequently  there 
was  "  verily  a  disannulling  of  the  commandment  going  before, 
for  the  weakness  and  unprofitableness  thereof."  If  that  first 
covenant  had  been  faultless,  there  should  have  been  sought  no 
place  for  the  second.  But  finding  fault  with  them.  He  saith: 
"  Behold,  the  days  come,  when  I  will  make  a  new  covenant, 
establish  a  new  relation,  to  the  house  of  Israel :  not  according 
to  the  covenant  which  I  made  with  them  when  I  led  them 
out  of  Egypt  (the  Sinaitic  decalogue)  :  for  this  is  the  covenant 
that  I  will  make :  I  will  put  My  laws  into  their  mind,  and  write 
them  in  their  hearts,  and  I  will  be  to  them  a  God  and  they 
shall  be  to  Me  a  people,  for  they  shall  all  know  Me,  from 
the  least  to  the  greatest."  (Hebrews  8;  Paul  is  assumed  to 
be  the  author  of  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  Even  if  he  was 
not,  its  writer  evidently  had  apostolic  authority.)  Over  and 
over  again  Paul  argues  this  same  point,  particularly  in  Ephe- 
sians  and  Galatians. 

By  his  logic  Paul  forces  us  out  of  subjectship  into  sonship. 
We  simply  cannot  be  good  subjects;  sin  is  born  in  us ;  there  is 
none  that  doeth  good,  no,  not  one;  we  have  all  gone  astray; 
they  that  are  in  the  flesh  cannot  please  God  (save  they  walk 
by  an  inner  Spirit)  ;  He  hath  concluded  all  under  unbelief, 
Jew  and  Greek,  there  is  no  difference;  if  we  abide  under  the 
conception  of  God's  sovereignty  alone  there  is  absolutely  no 
hope,  for  only  the  utter  keeping  of  the  law  in  every  particular 
can  suflice,  we  must  abide  in  all  the  deeds  of  the  law  to  do  them. 


38         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

and  this  none  can  do,  for  if  we  say  we  have  no  sin  we  deceive 
ourselves.  We  are  thus  expelled  from  servantship  into  son- 
ship  :  '^  for  we  have  not  received  the  spirit  of  bondage  again 
unto  fear,  but  the  spirit  of  adoption,  whereby  we  cry,  Abba, 
Father!" 

It  is  not  at  all  the  New  Testament  idea  that  we  are  still  sub- 
jects of  God,  deriving  our  obligation  from  His  law,  and  using 
Christ's  oblation  merely  to  make  good  our  dereliction  in  keep- 
ing the  commandments,  for  that  would  be  but  a  patched  up 
Judaism :  it  would  be  the  same  old  covenant  with  a  new  piece 
sewed  on  to  an  old  garment ;  it  would  be  putting  new  wine  into 
old  skins.  The  law  is  gone  as  a  source  of  obligation;  its  place 
is  taken  by  the  indwelling  Christ,  who  gives  us  a  righteousness 
exceeding  that  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees.  The  law  remains 
as  a  yard-stick,  a  divinely  given  test  or  measure  by  which  we 
can  examine  ourselves  and  see  whether  we  be  in  the  love  of 
Christ.  As  such  not  one  jot  nor  tittle  of  the  law  shall  ever  pass 
away ;  it  is  an  ever-perfect  guide  as  to  how  the  love  of  Christ 
will  make  a  man  act.  The  law  was  our  schoolmaster  unto 
(or  until)  Christ.  But  after  that  faith  in  Him  is  come,  we 
are  no  longer  under  a  schoolmaster ;  for  ye  are  all  the  children 
of  God  by  faith  in  Jesus  Christ.      (Gal.  3.) 

From  the  very  beginning  men  have  feared  to  trust  this  love 
of  God.  It  was  deemed  too  faint,  too  weak.  Paul's  antag- 
onists accused  him  of  preaching  a  doctrine  that  would  lead 
men  to  sin  "that  grace  might  abound."  They  thought  his 
doctrine  trusted  so  much  to  human  nature  and  its  possibilities 
that  the  flood-gates  would  be  open  to  the  iniquitous  practices 
of  antinomianism.  This  same  distrust  of  the  power  of  God's 
love  to  regulate  man  was  the  foundation  upon  which  the 
Roman  Church  built  its  authority;  people  must  have  a  school- 
master, they  must  be  given  laws  and  rules;  the  law  of  love  is 
too  invertebrate!  And  even  until  this  day  the  churches  strive 
to  keep  authority  over  men's  consciences  and  actions,  they  must 
play  the  schoolmaster.  As  a  consequence,  church  life  is  more 
prolific  in  religiosity  than  in  character.     Unless  the  churches 


Love  the  Fundamental  Idea  39 

shall  see  their  error  and  boldly  come  back  to  the  liberty  of 
Jesus  and  of  Paul,  preaching  the  power  of  the  inner  Christ  to 
regulate  all  conduct,  guided  and  advised  but  never  commanded 
by  churchly  schoolmastership,  it  is  probable  that  the  next  cen- 
tury will  see  the  chief  growth  of  Christianity  outside  of  church 
life  entirely,  as  a  social  movement  and  influence,  while  the 
churches  dwindle  more  and  more  into  Pharisaic  cults. 


Is  Christianity   Founded   Upon  a  Book  or 
Upon  a  Person? 


i 


Is    Christianity    Founded    Upon    a 
Book  or  Upon  a  Person  ? 

BY 

The  Reverend  L.  W.  BATTEN,  Ph.D. 

IN  the  period  following  the  Reformation  age  a  mistake  was 
made  which  has  cost  the  Christian  Church  dearly,  and  it 
will  not  finish  paying  the  penalty  for  some  time  to  come.  With 
the  enlightenment  which  came  with  the  new  era  of  learning 
there  was  bound  to  be  a  revolt  from  the  bondage  of  the 
Church.  The  recent  correspondence  between  Prof.  Mivart  and 
Cardinal  Vaughn  shows  what  that  bondage  was.  The  suspect 
is  required  to  submit  his  judgment  absolutely  to  the  judgment 
of  the  Church,  to  teach  what  it  teaches,  to  believe  what  it  be- 
lieves, and  to  condemn  what  it  condemns. 

The  Reformation  was  in  large  part  a  revolt  from  such  an 
abject  submission  to  the  authority  of  the  Church.  It  asserted 
in  the  most  explicit  terms  the  right  of  private  judgment.  Es- 
pecially it  asserted  this  in  regard  to  the  interpretation  of  the 
Scriptures.  But  men  cannot  get  along  without  an  authority; 
at  least  most  men  cannot.  The  liberty  gained  at  a  great  price 
was  abused  by  some,  and  not  appreciated  by  others.  A  new 
authority  must  be  found  just  as  infallible  as  the  Pope,  and  sat- 
isfying to  the  minds  of  Protestants.  With  nearly  one  consent 
this  new  authority  was  found  in  the  Scriptures.  All  the 
Protestant  bodies  did  not  make  this  authority  an  article  of  the 
faith,  the  Anglican  Church  and  its  American  daughter  never 
did;  but  all  alike  agreed  that  the  Scripture  was  authoritative. 
With  the  ideas  of  the  Bible  which  were  held  at  that  time  this 
was  very  well.  But  when  a  new  light  was  shed  upon  the 
sacred  books  these  rigidly  formulated  ideas  stood  in  the  way 
of  acceptance  of  new  views,  and  so  the  Protestant  Churches 
have  been  plagued  by  modern  Biblical  criticism,  not  on  ac- 
count of  the  criticism,  but  because  they  had  set  the  Bible  in  a 

43 


44         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

place  of  authority  to  take  the  place  of  the  discarded  authority 
of  the  Church.  The  Bible  was  looked  upon  as  the  foundation 
of  the  Church,  the  source  of  the  faith,  and  the  rock  upon 
which  Christianity  was  established. 

If  we  go  back  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  and  His  apos- 
tles, we  can  easily  see  that  the  Bible  was  never  intended  to 
occupy  such  a  place.  Moreover  we  can  easily  appreciate  now 
what  a  great  chance  the  men  of  the  post-Reformation  age 
missed,  in  that  they  made  the  Bible  their  fundamental  author- 
ity instead  of  Jesus  Christ  Himself.  Alike  in  the  person  of 
Christ,  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  in  the  Church,  we  find  both 
the  divine  and  the  human.  But  there  is  this  difference.  In 
the  Scriptures  and  in  the  Church  there  is  no  assurance  that 
the  earthen  vessels  in  which  the  divine  treasure  is  contained  are 
not  of  the  earth,  and  so  earthy;  while  in  the  person  of  Christ 
the  divine  so  permeated  the  human,  that  the  general  human 
frailties  find  no  place.  However  we  may  interpret  the  kenosis, 
we  must  and  do  hold  to  the  absolute  sinlessness  of  Christ.  In 
Him,  human  though  He  was,  there  was  no  admixture  of  human 
error.  But  we  have  no  such  guarantee  for  the  Church  or  for 
the  Bible.  There  are  and  always  have  been  errors  in  the 
Church,  and  there  are  errors  in  the  Bible.  Men  may  differ  as 
to  their  amount  and  importance,  but  there  cannot  be  two  opin- 
ions as  to  their  existence. 

Now  if  we  are  to  have  an  authority  as  the  foundation  of  our 
religion,  it  must  be  infallible.  All  men  have  realized  this  neces- 
sity ;  hence  the  Roman  doctrine  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  as 
the  Vicar  of  Christ  and  the  head  of  the  Church,  and  the  Protes- 
tant doctrine  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Scriptures.  If  the  godly 
men  of  the  post-Reformation  age  had  fixed  upon  Christ  as  the 
foundation  of  their  religion,  and  had  valued  the  Scriptures  be- 
cause they  bore  witness  to  Him,  they  would  have  taken  a  posi- 
tion from  which  no  criticism  could  have  dislodged  them,  and 
the  Church  might  have  looked  complacently  upon  the  works  of 
the  scholars  of  the  last  century,  knowing  that  their  conclusions 
could  not  prove  disastrous. 


Upon  a  Book  or  Upon  a  Person?  45 

If  the  Bible  were  really  intended  to  be  the  foundation  of 
Christianity  there  should  surely  have  been  some  hint  of  it  in 
the  New  Testament.  Jesus  never  wrote  a  single  one  of  His 
utterances  nor  commanded  any  one  else  to  do  so.  The  first 
written  versions  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus  have  been  lost,  and 
there  seems  to  have  been  no  serious  effort  to  preserve  an  ac- 
count of  His  deeds  and  words  until  toward  the  close  of  the  life 
of  the  apostles.  The  early  preaching  of  the  apostles  was 
wholly  oral,  and  the  pen  was  for  the  most  part  only  taken  up 
when  it  was  not  possible  to  reach  the  people  with  the  living 
voice.  St.  Paul  wrote  only  when  he  could  not  be  present  in 
person,  and  he  regarded  the  written  epistle  as  a  mere  temporary 
substitute  for  the  oral  teaching. 

Christ  gave  many  commandments  to  His  disciples.  He  bade 
them  teach  and  baptize;  but  He  never  anywhere  commanded 
them  to  write.  There  is  no  command  anywhere  in  the  New 
Testament  to  gather  the  writings  of  the  apostolic  age  into  a 
book,  and  to  cherish  it  as  the  foundation  of  Christianity. 
Many  of  the  apostolic  writings  have  been  lost,  and  there  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  that  those  which  were  lost  were  just  as  valuable 
as  those  which  have  survived.  But  the  writings  which  have 
been  lost  are  a  trifle  compared  to  the  oral  teaching  which  was 
never  put  in  written  form.  Think  what  a  treasure  it  would 
be,  if  we  had  all  the  teaching  of  Christ,  to  say  nothing  of  that 
of  His  apostles,  of  which  we  have  but  a  few  samples. 

There  is  a  fundamental  difficulty  about  making  the  Bible  the 
foundation  of  the  Christian  Church  and  the  infallible  authority 
in  the  Christian  religion.  The  Church  and  the  Christian  faith 
both  antedate  the  Scriptures.  For  some  twenty  years  after  the 
Resurrection  of  Christ,  there  was  not  a  line  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment written,  and  twenty  years  is  a  good  while  in  such  a 
critical  time  as  the  first  period  of  the  apostolic  age.  And  it 
was  a  long  time  after  the  apostolic  age  before  the  various 
writings  were  collected  and  the  collection  declared  canonical. 

To  assert  that  the  Bible  is  the  foundation  of  the  Christian 
Church  to-day  is  to  deny  that  there  was  any  foundation  in  the 


46         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

first  Christian  centuries,  or  else  to  hold  that  the  foundation 
is  different  now  from  what  it  was  first.  Neither  of  these 
alternatives  is  very  satisfying. 

In  the  post-Reformation  age  very  little  stress  was  likely  to 
be  laid  upon  the  historical  facts  concerning  the  origin  of  the 
Church  and  of  the  Bible.  Many  of  the  reformed  Churches 
were  recent  organizations,  and  the  Bible  seemed  old  enough 
for  them  to  rest  upon.  If  I  am  not  mistaken  those  same 
Churches  now  look  upon  their  connection  with  the  apostolic 
Church  as  real  though  they  do  not  claim  historic  continuity. 
The  question  then  of  the  foundation  of  the  Church,  before 
the  New  Testament  became  a  recognized  treasure  of  the 
Church,  becomes  important  to  them,  as  well  as  to  us,  who  re- 
joice in  a  direct  historic  descent  from  Christ  and  His  apostles. 

The  Fourth  Gospel  may  be,  as  many  claim,  rather  an  in- 
terpretation than  a  statement  of  Christ's  teachings.  If  so, 
the  interpretation  is  apostolic,  and  it  is  remarkable  for  its  in- 
sistence upon  a  personal  attachment  to  Christ  as  the  essential 
necessity  in  religion.  ''  If  I  be  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  I  will 
draw  all  men  unto  Myself."  (St.  John  12:  32.)  "  I  am  the 
Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life :  no  one  cometh  unto  the  Father 
but  by  Me."  (lb.  14 :  6.)  ''I  am  the  door :  by  Me  if  any  man 
enter  in,  he  shall  be  saved  and  shall  go  in  and  go  out,  and  shall 
find  pasture."  (lb.  19:  9.)  "  These  things  have  I  spoken  unto 
you!  that  in  Me  ye  may  have  peace."  (lb.  16:  33.)  ''Thou 
gavest  Him  authority  over  all  flesh,  that  whatsoever  Thou  hast 
given  Him,  to  them  He  should  give  eternal  life."  (lb.  17:  2.) 
How  sad  that  devotion  to  a  book,  however  sacred  and  however 
infinitely  precious  that  book  is,  should  have  taken  the  place  of 
the  attachment  to  the  living  Christ. 

St.  Paul  expressed  unmistakably  his  conception  of  the  foun- 
dation of  Christianity  in  a  passage  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephe- 
sians  :  ''  Ye  are  fellow-citizens  with  the  saints,  and  of  the  house- 
hold of  God,  being  built  upon  the  foundation  of  the  Apostles 
and  Prophets,  Christ  Jesus  Himself  being  the  chief  corner- 
stone'*   (2:i9f).     In  another  epistle  St.  Paul  says  that  he 


i 


Upon  a  Book  or  Upon  a  Person  ?  47 

himself  laid  a  foundation  as  a  wise  master-builder ;  but  lest  he 
should  be  misunderstood  as  implying  that  it  was  competent 
for  an  apostle  to  choose  his  foundation  at  will,  he  hastens  to 
add,  "  But  let  each  man  take  heed  how  he  buildeth  thereon. 
For  other  foundation  can  no  man  lay  than  that  which  is  laid, 
which  is  Jesus  Christ."      (i  Cor.  3 :  10  f.) 

With  this  I  rest  my  plea.  I  do  not  for  a  moment  desire  to 
depreciate  the  great  value  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Thousands 
of  struggling  souls  have  found  in  them  the  inspiration  of  a 
new  life.  But  I  do  hope  the  time  is  coming  when  the  Scrip- 
tures will  not  be  forced  into  a  place  which  belongs  to  no  other 
than  to  Jesus  Christ  Himself. 


i 


Christianity  and  Its  Competitors 


Christianity  and  Its  Competitors 


The  Reverend  HARRY  JONES,  M.A. 

BY  the  "  Competitors  of  Christianity  "  must  first  be  under- 
stood those  religions  which  are  still  widely  professed  by 
mankind,  and  no  notice  should  be  taken  of  such  as  have 
dropped  out  of  the  race,  though  they  might  have  taught  an- 
other life  and  worshipped  unknown  gods,  or  as  a  cynic,  might 
bow  to  the  statue  of  Jupiter  with  a  request  to  be  remembered 
if  he  should  ever  sit  upon  a  throne  again.  We  cannot  even 
glance  at  the  cult  of  Babylon  and  Egypt,  though  a  Coptic 
Church  from  its  first,  challenged  decaying  belief  in  the  anti- 
septic land  of  the  Nile.  Nor  will  we  make  any  account  of 
African  fetichism  or  any  vague  aboriginal  worship  of  the 
"  Great  Spirit  ",  for  however  much  surviving  heathen  credulity 
may  resist  the  pressure  of  Christian  influence  it  is  not  "  pro- 
gressive." Nor  can  this  be  said  of  the  unwieldy  mass  of  Bud- 
dhism, though  it  is  adhered  to  by  more  than  can  be  counted  in 
the  Greek  and  Roman  Churches  together,  with  all  professors 
of  Christianity  added  to  them.  Of  Eastern  religions,  indeed, 
there  remains  only  Islam  which  deserves  to  be  called  a  com- 
petitor of  Christianity,  though  perhaps  its  vitality  may  be  ac- 
counted for  by  the  Christian  tincture  in  its  veins.  But  though 
we  are  told  of  some  progress  which  it  is  stated  to  be  making 
among  black  African  natives,  we  hear  nothing  of  its  advance 
in  civilized  regions  of  the  world.  Where  among  them  can  w^e 
point  to  missions  in  the  name  of  Mahomet? 

Setting  aside,  then,  aboriginal  or  ancient  faiths,  and  those, 
however  vast,  which  are  still  sluggishly  alive,  or  continue  ap- 
pealing to  the  Oriental  mind,  we  come  to  Christianity,  which 
questions  all  forms  of  human  religious  belief  in  the  name  of 
One  who  came  into  this  world  twenty  centuries  ago  not  as  a 
candidate  for  admission  into  the  Pantheon,  but  as  King  of 
kings,  and  in  the  space  of  three  years  set  up  an  action  among 

51  'J.  .   . 


52         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

men  which  has  been  more  widely  felt  in  our  generation  than 
by  any  in  the  world  before.  Like  its  Founder,  it  was  once  de- 
spised and  rejected  of  men.  It  hid  in  catacombs  and  though 
a  light  shining  in  a  dark  place,  its  shine  gave  no  more  than 
that  of  an  unheeded  spark.  But  it  now  appeals  to  the  simple 
and  the  wise  in  every  land  known  in  both  hemispheres  of  our 
globe. 

And  who  are  its  competitors?  The  thought  of  the  Jews 
immediately  presents  itself.  We  worship  the  same  God,  read 
the  same  Bible,  sing  the  same  Psalms,  and  they  are  our  col- 
leagues in  many  good  works  dear  to  the  Christian  heart.  But 
our  prayers  are  put  up  "through  Jesus  Christ  Our  Lord  ". 
We  look  on  Him  as  the  Author  and  Finisher  of  our  faith,  and 
a  religion  which  resents  His  predominance  cannot  strictly  be 
reckoned  among  the  competitors  of  Christianity.  This  is  the 
more  evident  as  now  the  Jews  do  not  challenge  the  Christian, 
being  persecuted  rather  than  persecutors.  They  go  their  own 
way  with  surviving  tenacity,  and  are  content  to  await  a  Mes- 
siah who  shall  redeem  Israel  after  their  own  fashion.  Ju- 
daism cannot  properly  be  said  to  compete  with  our  Creed. 

Far  otherwise  is  it  with  Science,  which  professes  no  religion 
and  does  not  even  call  itself  a  Society,  though,  as  it  were,  it 
admits  every  one  into  its  membership  who  is  willing  to  learn. 
It  recognizes  no  baptism  except  that  by  the  spirit  of  inquiry 
and  no  revelation  but  such  as  follows  experiment.  Its  gospel, 
that  on  which  it  rests  for  the  rise  and  happiness  of  mankind, 
is  all-pervading  Law.  This  is  no  bloodless  mortal  code,  but 
brims  with  progressive  life,  involving  the  use  of  human  good- 
will which  is  as  much  a  result  of  creation  or  evolution  as  any- 
thing in  the  cosmos,  and  it  is  by  many  believed  that  as  this 
Almighty  Law  is  gradually  discovered,  man  feels  the  ground 
firmer  under  his  feet  and  takes  his  right  place  in  creation,  the 
kingdom  of  nature,  or  as  we  should  say,  the  kingdom  of  God. 
And  this  kingdom  it  holds  to  be  visible  and  invisible  since  in 
both  it  apprehends  step  after  step,  the  things  which  have  been 


Christianity  and  its  Competitors  53 

h'idden  in  the  past.  It  admits  no  hell  but  that  of  obstinate 
ignorance,  and  no  heaven  but  that  of  intelligent  enquiring 
knowledge.  And  it  turns  its  searchlight  upon  all  claims  of 
authority,  including  the  religious. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the  scientific  man 
always  repudiates  the  title  "  Christian ".  He  uses  its  lan- 
guage. "  Prove  all  things.  Hold  fast  to  that  which  is  good." 
He  quotes  sayings  of  Jesus.  He  aims  at  the  material  and  in- 
tellectual advance  of  mankind.  Thus  he  latently  influences 
many  sincere  Christians  though  he  loosens  the  reliance  of  some 
on  the  Bible  and  occasionally  takes  the  wind  out  of  the  sails  of 
the  Church.  It  is  not  that  he  despises  Scripture  and  the  stores 
of  ecclesiastical  learning,  but  they  are  no  more  to  him  than 
items  in  experience  and  history  which  no  honest  inquirer  can 
disregard  if  true  to  his  creed,  and  that  is  to  learn  what  he  can 
from  any  source,  never  to  confuse  opinions  with  conclusions, 
or  mistake  a  station  on  the  road  for  the  terminus  at  the  end  of 
his  journey.  Meanwhile  he  is  far  from  rejecting  the  hope  of 
final  definite  instruction  which  is  at  the  root  of  all  good  human 
desire,  whether  it  be  called  religious  or  not.  For  this  he 
craves,  and  sometimes  is  ready  to  forget  the  things  which  are 
behind,  as  fresh  pages  are  opened  in  the  book  of  knowledge. 

It  is  not  our  business  here  to  enter  into  the  boundless  field 
of  competition  between  brain  and  heart,  authority  and  reason, 
or  objective  and  subjective,  but  when  we  talk  of  Christianity 
and  its  Competitors  the  gravest  regard  must  be  paid  to  the  in- 
sistent world,  and  that  influence  of  science  which  some  good 
Christians  (rightly  or  wrongly)  look  at  as  a  challenger  of 
their  faith.  This  is  the  more  suspected  in  these  days  when  not 
a  few  devout  and  learned  divines  have  recognized  the  necessity 
for  taking  new  grounds  in  the  study  of  the  Bible  and  parting 
from  some  of  its  interpretations  which  have  been  long  popu- 
larly accepted.  The  Christian,  however,  need  not  be  dismayed 
at  finding  himself  unable  to  give  minute  intellectual  assent  to 
what  he  hears,  but  he  is  imperilled  if  he  resents  that  which 


54         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

is  called  the  "  higher  criticism  "  even  by  pious  truth-loving 
divines.  Such  an  attitude  changes  what  would  have  been  a 
friend  into  a  Competitor  of  Christianity. 

Many,  however,  are  sore  let  and  hindered  in  the  race  by 
something  quite  different  to  the  criticism  of  honest  learned 
Christians  who  are  only  more  anxious  to  shed  a  fuller  light 
upon  the  Scriptures,  and  so  utilize  the  present  eager  spirit  of 
inquiry  in  support  of  their  faith.  Those  I  refer  to  as  per- 
plexed in  their  course  are  hampered  by  the  exclusive  require- 
ments of  some  who  repeat  the  same  creed  and  say  the  same 
Lord's  Prayer  as  themselves.  But,  unhappily,  there  is  no  truth 
more  profound  and  far  reaching  than  that  seen  in  the  saying 
of  Jesus,  "  A  man's  foes  shall  be  they  of  his  own  household.'* 

I  shall  presently  notice  the  drag  upon  Christianity  which  is 
caused,  not  by  divisions,  in  themselves  weakening,  and  thus 
mischievous,  but  by  the  procedure  of  some  parties  so  influential 
that  they  do  not  so  much  compete  together,  as  become  hinderers, 
in  what  they  should  unite  in  advancing. 

Meanwhile  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  without  being 
ostentatiously  or  ostensibly  Christian  there  are  influences  which 
rival  those  shed  by  our  faith  and  may  be  called  "  'isms."  Of 
course  Christians  hail  every  effort  to  forward  the  good  of 
humanity  by  whomsoever  made,  and  in  the  turmoil  of  religious 
dispute  they  may  be  disposed  to  say  ''  Nevertheless  Christ  is 
preached."  But  that  is  just  what  some  "  'isms  "  don't  do. 
They  don't  claim  the  spirit  of  Christ  as  the  Mover  of  their 
souls.  Some  of  them  would  eliminate  anything  distinctly 
"  religious  "  from  their  creed,  and  thus  in  a  sense  must  be 
reckoned  as  competitors,  since  they,  nevertheless,  desire  the 
good  of  man,  and  they  are  intensely  eager  in  the  pursuit  of 
their  aims.  Others  may  recognize  Christianity  as  an  ally,  or 
count  prominent  Christians  among  their  ranks,  but  frequently 
the  apostles  of  an  imperative  ''  'ism,"  question  the  authority  of 
any  creed  which  claims  to  have  a  special  revelation  from  God. 
Unlike  cold-blooded  scientists  who  listen  for  evidence  all  round, 
they  pick  out  certain  promising  principles  of  life  and  squeeze 


Christianity  and  Its  Competitors  55 

them  dry,  professing  to  rely  upon  the  great  laws  of  Nature, 
as  if  one  of  these  were  not  always  balanced  by  another.  They 
admit  no  compromises,  forgetting  that  if  centrifugal  force 
were  not  met  by  that  of  gravitation  we  should  all  be  whisked 
off  the  revolving  globe  like  water  from  a  twirling  mop. 
Strenuous  upholders  of  an  'ism  are  often  one-sided  as  well  as 
enthusiastic,  but  when  enthusiasm  (which  governs  the  world) 
inspires  a  specialist  in  philanthropy  who  fails  to  realize  the  de- 
votion of  others,  he  is  like  a  tree  with  one  branch,  and  his  'ism 
becomes  to  him  a  small  competitor  of  Christianity.  Were  he 
alone,  his  place  in  the  race  would  be  insignificant,  but  if  he 
desires  an  end  acknowledged  by  many  to  be  radically  good,  his 
zeal  is  contagious  and  a  multitude  is  swept  into  its  stream 
hardly  apprehending  the  aim  of  those  who  press  towards  the 
mark  for  the  prize  of  their  high  calling  in  Christ  Jesus.  Thus 
they  form  a  body  which  competes  with  the  holders  of  our  faith, 
for  through  the  mind  of  Christ  is  all-embracing  He  requires 
the  least  good  thing,  such  as  the  giving  of  a  cup  of  coM  water, 
to  be  done  in  His  name  in  order  that  the  doer  may  be  reckoned 
as  being  "  with  "  Him.  In  this  sense  Christianity  is  exclusive, 
but  no  more  so  than  sunshine,  shed  on  the  evil  and  the  good, 
but  supporting  no  life  in  man  or  beast  unless  it  be  assimilated. 
It  is,  however,  among  distinctly  professing  Christians  that 
we  find  some  of  the  most  vital  competitors  of  Christianity, 
For  it  knows  no  parties  as  such,  and  its  spirit  is  damped  by 
their  exclusiveness,  or  by  the  substitution  of  something  else 
for  the  supreme  will  of  God  which  Christ  came  to  do  in  the 
sacrifice  of  Himself.  That  which  "  competes  "  with  this  should 
be  highly  honoured  among  men  and  have  a  conspicuous  place 
in  the  race.  Indeed,  it  should  have  no  mere  worldly  object 
in  view  but  one  apparently  Christian.  We  cannot  sweep  off 
the  whole  subject  before  us  simply  by  saying,  "  The  competi- 
tors of  Christianity  are  the  World,  the  Flesh  and  the  Devil." 
It  is  true  that  these  powers  appeal  to  man,  but  they  address  his 
lower  appetites  only,  taking  no  notice  of  his  aspirations  except 
to  sneer  at  them.    They  set  his  face  the  wrong  way  and  offer 


56         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

a  prize  which  is  seen  not  unseen,  bodily  not  spiritual.  They 
are  of  those  who  glory  in  their  shame,  whose  God  is  their 
belly,  who  mind  earthly  things.  These  three  can  hardly  be 
called  competitors,  as  even  the  last  in  their  unholy  trio  is  re- 
corded, at  a  crisis  of  temptation,  as  seeking  to  divert  the  aim 
of  Him  who  came  preaching  the  kingdom  of  heaven  by  offer- 
ing that  of  the  world  and  its  glory.  They  are  enemies  not  rivals. 
And  a  rival  should  have  some  reputable  aim,  such  as  a  worship 
of  God  or  a  hope  of  immortality,  however  tainted,  mistaken, 
or  superstitious.  An  avowed  enemy  is  not  in  the  race.  He 
would  hinder  it  altogether,  not  affecting  to  desire  a  prize  con- 
tended for  by  rivals.  Competitors  of  Christianity  must  all  run, 
and  run  in  the  same  direction,  though  they  must  needs  appeal 
to  some  desire  which  reaches  beyond  this  world.  Possibly, 
indeed,  this  hope  may  be  almost  grotesquely  mistaken,  or  rivals 
may  so  run  that  those  best  able  to  judge  may  wholly  question 
their  procedure  though  their  professed  intentions  may  be  es- 
timable. And  that  makes  them  all  the  more  dangerous.  To 
use  an  obvious  illustration,  a  good  physician  reprobates  the 
quack  more  than  one  who  scorns  any  curative  treatment  what- 
ever. An  uneducated  empiric  may  be  quite  sincere,  and 
honestly  desire  to  enter  into  the  house  of  healing,  but  he  may 
despise  the  door,  trying  to  climb  in  some  other  way.  So  the 
apostles  of  Christianity  are  challenged  and  its  advance  hin- 
dered, not  so  much  by  declared  enemies,  as  by  one-sided  ad- 
herents who  would  indignantly  disclaim  any  opposition  to  its 
influence.  They  might,  indeed,  claim  the  greatest  scriptural 
support  to  their  "  opinions  "  and  *'  views  "  and  profess  to  hold 
a  leading  place  in  the  race  divine,  as  the  Pharisees  did  in  the 
time  of  Jesus,  and  honestly  enough,  for  they  trusted  in  them- 
selves that  they  were  righteous,  i.  e.  believed  this  confidence  to 
be  secure,  and  despised  others. 

But  if  any  have  been  competitors  of  Christianity,  they  were. 
At  all  times  such  as  these  remind  us  of  the  saying  or  rather 
prophecy,  "  A  man's  foes  shall  be  they  of  his  own  household." 
Jesus  came  to  fulfil  the  law  and  the  prophets,  and  who  chiefly 


Christianity  and  Its  Competitors  57 

withstood  Him  ?  Not  Gentiles,  but  Jews  who  in  looking  for  a 
Messiah  after  their  own  mind  based  their  hopes  upon  the 
scriptures  which  Jesus  showed  the  true  meaning  of.  And  it 
was  because  He  did  that,  and  would  not  interpret  them  in  a 
hard  literal  sense  like  the  accepted  theologians  of  His  day,  they 
opposed  Him  to  the  death,  one  of  the  chief  charges  against 
Him  being  that  He  blasphemed  Moses  and  the  law.  And 
when  we  talk  about  the  competitors  of  Christianity  it  is  in  the 
record  of  the  Gospels  themselves  that  we  can  find  the  initial 
fathers  of  such  as  can  be  rightly  so  called  to-day.  Some  indeed 
of  these  early  opponents  saw  their  errors  and  may  be  likened 
to  St.  Paul,  who  thought  verily^  was  quite  sure,  that  he  ought 
to  be  an  enemy  of  Christ  and  a  persecutor  of  Christians,  but 
obtained  mercy  because  he  did  what  he  did  ignorantly,  in  mis- 
belief, or,  rather,  misapprehension  of  what  Christianity  really 
was.  Many  have  had  their  eyes  opened  from  time  to  time  as 
God  teaches  us  and  we  are  enabled  to  understand  His  will,  but 
the  old  misapprehension  of  Christianity  remains.  The  men  of 
ancient  days  made  the  Word  of  God  of  none  effect  by  their 
traditions  and  though  the  tradition  be  not  now  precisely  the 
same,  it  is  moving  on,  and  thwarting  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel 
as  it  once  did  the  spirit  of  the  Law.  As  the  New  Testament 
is  the  only  book  which  tells  us  about  the  actual  Jesus  Christ 
Himself,  though  false  Christs  and  prophets  have  arisen,  those 
who  handle  it  as  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  did  the  Old,  are 
competitors  of  His  faith  to-day.  He  said  "  The  words  that  I 
speak  unto  you  they  are  spirit  and  they  are  life  "  but  they  are 
still  "  words  ",  and  may  be  used  to  hide  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel 
as  well  as  that  of  the  Law.  The  letter  is  nothing  without  the 
spirit  beneath  it,  and  Christianity  is  ever  liable  to  be  strangled 
by  a  punctilious  insistence  on  verbal  authority.  The  old  Doc- 
tors in  the  time  of  Christ  were  sincerely  esteemed  as  the  most 
orthodox  by  the  then  religious  world.  So  men  may  be  credited 
now,  and  they  may  buttress  their  doctrine  with  Bible  texts 
while  they  are  really  magnifying  a  sect  till  it  veils  the  Chris- 
tianity of  Christ.    And  the  smallest  thing  may  block  the  widest 


58         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

view.  A  hand  held  before  the  face  shuts  out  the  world.  Thus 
when  the  field  of  Christian  vision  is  crowded  with  competing 
definitions  and  explanations  of  the  Oracles  of  God  and  with 
forms  claiming  to  represent  the  Christian  faith,  the  sight  of 
Christ  Himself  is  blurred  and  those  who  are  counted  to  be 
runners  in  His  race  might  sometimes  be  perplexed  at  being 
asked  what  prize  they  expected  to  win. 

Forms,  in  short,  it  is  to  be  feared,  are  the  chief  competitors 
of  Christianity.  Of  course  they  are  valuable  though  not  neces- 
sary, for  it  is  the  water,  not  the  cup  which  satisfies  the  thirsty 
man.  It  may  indeed  be  so  beautiful,  the  giver  cannot  resist 
commending  its  beauty.  Moreover,  to  pass  from  this  obvious 
illustration,  the  Water  of  Life  is  not  contained  in  a  pool  so 
that  the  ministers  of  religion  can  draw  thence  for  their  flocks 
and  think  that  they  can  thus  sufficiently  supply  their  needs. 
Or,  worse  still,  it  is  not  stored  in  a  tank  fitted  with  pipes  over 
which  the  sacerdotal  officer  alone  has  control.  "  The  w^ater 
that  I  give,"  says  Jesus,  ''  is  a  well  of  water  springing  up  into 
everlasting  life."  The  minister  of  Christ  thus  seeks  to  let  his 
fellows  know  that  they  are,  through  Christ,  in  touch  with  God 
Himself,  and  there  are  those  in  every  Christian  Church  and 
sect  who  have  been  and  are  enabled  to  do  this.  But  if  teachers 
of  Christianity  so  magnify  their  office  as  to  make  their  dis- 
ciples think  more  of  the  '^  means  of  grace  "  than  of  the  Spring 
itself,  who  can  wonder  at  their  coming  to  be  reckoned  among 
its  competitors? 


The  Doctrine  of  the  Immanence  of  God 


The  Doctrine  of  the  Immanence  of 

God 

The  Witness  of  Science  to  this  Truth  of  Theology 

BY 

The  Reverend  JAMES  EELLS 

THE  object  of  this  paper  is  to  examine  the  statements  of 
the  latest  scientific  researches,  and  to  show  that  such 
statements  really  demand  from  theology  the  statement  of  the 
Immanence  of  God.  It  is  proposed  to  show  that  science 
cannot  be  complete  without  this  statement;  and  that  no  one 
can  give  due  weight  to  scientific  thought  without  being  led  to- 
ward this  conclusion.  Such  is  the  large  purpose,  whether  it 
fails  or  not,  to  solve  the  perplexity  of  the  people  honestly  in 
doubt  as  to  these  things. 

The  history  of  opinion  goes  to  show  that  whenever  Ex- 
perimental Science  and  Psychology  agree  in  presenting  any 
truth  at  any  period,  that  truth  soon  controls  the  religious 
thinking  of  the  time.  Such  a  process  is  going  on  to-day,  and 
accounts  for  the  unrest  and  questioning  and  dismay  which  ap- 
pall so  many  men  and  women.  Religion  is  by  no  means  over- 
thrown; but  it  is  shifting  its  theological  point  of  view.  We 
are  living  in  an  intensely  religious  time,  howbeit  in  a  time 
wherein  a  former  theology  is  fast  losing  its  control.  Science 
and  Psychology  are  in  the  lead ;  Theology  must  follow  and  be 
taught.  Her  gain  will  be  transcendent  if  she  be  faithful  to  her 
God,  and  docile  to  her  essentially  devout  instructors. 

And  now  we  must  see  what  this  process  is.  The  first  witness 
to  examine  is  Experimental  Science.  Has  this  anything  to  say 
about  God?  The  method  of  science  is  to  observe  material 
phenomena  nearest  at  hand.  It  makes  experiments  upon 
these,  it  studies  the  way  these  act  in  various  conditions,  and 
how  they  can  be  modified,  or  their  relations  one  to  another  be 
changed.  Such  study  would  be  incomplete,  of  course,  if  it  were 
confined  to  what  exists  now  without  asking  whether  it  has  al- 

6i 


62         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

ways  existed,  and  whether  it  existed  in  the  shape  in  which  we 
find  it  to-day.  What  made  things  take  their  present  form  and  se- 
quence? This  study  necessitates  an  examination  of  causes, 
and  the  fitting  of  fancied  causes  to  the  observed  effects,  in  order 
to  see  if  the  cause  and  the  effect  belong  together.  When  men 
push  the  method  back  from  one  cause  to  another  behind  it, 
at  last  they  must  be  confronted  with  the  tremendous  question, 
— What  caused  the  World  in  its  complex  entirety?  and  not 
only  this  world,  but  what  caused  the  other  bodies  which  we 
can  see  at  night  all  round  this  world?  Men  cannot  take  their 
questions  farther  back  than  that.  So  when  they  get  to  this 
ultimate  of  observation  they  must  begin  to  make  their  answers. 
To  begin  with,  Laplace  put  forward  the  Nebular  Hypothesis, 
which  accounted  for  the  facts  not  only  of  the  existence  of  this 
earth,  but  also  for  the  significant  phenemenon  that  all  the 
planets  (all  the  bodies  which  belong  to  the  solar  system  ac- 
cording to  this  theory)  revolve  in  the  same  direction,  i.  e. 
from  west  to  east.  He  accounted  for  this  by  assuming  in  the 
primitive  fire-mist  upon  which  his  theory  was  based,  the  ex- 
istence of  various  forces  more  or  less  contrary  and  disordered, 
but  which  eventually  would  settle  down  into  directive  forces 
among  which  the  strongest  would  control.  Then  the  query 
was  put  to  him,  "  What  caused  the  original  fire-mist?  *'  And 
the  only  adequate  reply  that  could  be  made  at  that  time  was 
that  "  Matter  is  eternal ;  the  fire-mist  is  only  a  new  and  tran- 
sient form  which  has  come  from  the  wreck  of  former  systems, 
perhaps."  This  answer  men  took,  and  based  upon  it  the 
materialistic  philosophy  of  the  universe.  But  the  old  puzzle 
of  the  origin  of  force  continued;  it  had  not  received  a  satis- 
factory settlement.  Are  there  countless  forces,  or  only  one 
force  with  countless  forms?  If  there  are  countless  forces,  how 
is  it  possible  to  change  one  form  into  another,  and  to  make  such 
changes  according  to  man's  will  and  ability?  Motion  for  in- 
stance may  be  turned  into  heat;  it  may  be  turned  into  light; 
it  may  be  turned  into  sound.  The  force  of  electricity  may 
be  turned  into  magnetism;    or  into  a  machine  for  overcom- 


The  Immanence  of  God  63 

ing  gravitation,  as  in  elevators;    or  into  any  one  of  a  thou- 
sand contrivances  which  are  simply  machines,  after  all,   for 
the  better  and  more  constant  transformation  of  energy.     Now, 
if  forces  can  thus  be  turned  into  one  another,  how  can  the 
change    be    accounted    for    except    on    some    theory,    which 
would  make  them  ultimately  one  single  force?    The  reply  of 
the  last  hundred  years  to  this  problem  is  that  all  force  is  one, 
which  is  the  astounding  and  universally  accepted  theory  of  the 
Correlation  of  Forces,  or  the  Persistence  of  Energy.     This  is 
a  tremendous  position  to  take,  mainly  because  of  the  deductions 
which  may  be  made  from  it,  and  which  must  be  verified  if  the 
original  theory  is  to  stand.    Science  did  not  shrink  from  those 
deductions ;  in  fact  Science  began  to  make  them  herself.     She 
said  that  the  only  answer  to  the  problem  as  to  how  the  universe 
came  into  being  was  that  Energy  was  the  First  Cause.     See 
the  step  which  has  been  taken.     From  the  position  that  Matter 
is   eternal,   we   have  gone   a   little   way   into   the  region   of 
the  immaterial,  and  we  have  gone  with  our  hand  in  the  hand  of 
Science,  and  Science  leading  the  way.     Must  we  stop  now? 
Must  we  turn  and  go  back  ?  or  will  Science  lead  us  on  a  little 
farther.     If  Force  and  Matter  are  different, — if  one  is  the  cause 
and  the  other  the  effect,  what  is  the  working  of  one  upon  the 
other  ?     How  do  they  stand  related  ?     In  order  fully  to  answer 
the  question,  Science  must  give  her  theory  as  to  how  matter  is 
made.     She  states  the  Atomic  Theory.     In  the  very  last  analy- 
sis of  Matter  we  find  an  atom,  which  is  not  material  but  is  a 
combination, — a  knot  of  entangled  forces, — and  forces  are  im- 
material.    This  theory  of  the  atom, — which  is  everywhere  ac- 
cepted as  the  only  present  explanation  of  many  mechanical  and 
chemical  phenomena, — this  theory  formulated  to  show  what  is 
the  relation  between  force  and  matter  declares  that  matter  is 
ultimately  force,  and  that  forms  of  matter  which  we  have  in 
visible,  sensible  masses  about  us,  are  consequently  only  mani- 
festations of  force, — the  body  which  covers  and  yet  reveals  the 
— what  shall  we  say,  Spirit f   yes;   spirit,  for  that  is  the  tre- 
mendous declaration  of  the  present-day  Science. 


64        Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

But  there  is  another  series  of  questions  which  forces  itself 
into  every  observation  of  natural  things.  How  does  force 
work?  or  rather,  how  may  motion  be  conveyed  from  one  seat 
of  operation  to  another?  If  light  is  a  form  of  motion,  how 
can  the  light  from  stars,  millions  of  miles  away  be  brought 
to  us?  If  heat  is  a  form  of  motion,  how  is  it  possible  to  bring 
the  heat  of  the  sun  to  us  across  the  93,000,000  miles  of  space  ? 
Light,  sound,  heat  are  all  forms  of  vibration,  we  are  told ;  but 
to  have  vibrations  there  must  be  somewhat  to  vibrate,  of 
course.  After  making  all  sorts  of  guesses  to  meet  this,  it  was 
finally  declared  that  there  is  a  subtle,  pervasive  medium 
called  Ether,  which  fills  all  space,  and  all  spaces ;  which  cannot 
be  felt,  or  seen,  or  submitted  to  any  of  the  tests  of  the  senses ; 
but  which  is  so  elastic  as  to  permeate  all  substances,  and  so 
tenuous  as  to  admit  of  carrying  sound  through  material  ob- 
structions, and  light  from  the  farthest  star.  If  we  cannot 
weigh  or  test  or  measure  this  medium,  how  do  we  know  that  it 
exists  ?  What  is  the  proof  of  it  ?  "  Because  things  happen 
just  as  if  there  were  such  a  medium,  and  there  is  no  other  way 
to  account  for  their  happening."  That  is  the  reason  which 
Science  gives.  Nothing  more  of  proof  than  that.  And  this 
theoretic  ether,  is  just  like  the  theoretic  atom, — immaterial, 
hypothecated,  ultimately  spiritual.  Yet  upon  these  two  sub- 
stantial theories  has  been  reared  the  stupenduous  and  magnifi- 
cent system  of  Experimental  Science  which  is  the  glory  of  this 
century;  the  same  which  has  been  appealed  to  by  those  who 
would  confidently  lift  materialism  above  spirituality. 

These  two  great  positions  of  scientific  thought  have  estab- 
lished the  orderliness  and  regularity  of  nature's  workings. 
Because  of  the  regular  compounding  of  substances  according 
to  invariable  formulae  chemists  know  what  to  expect  when 
they  wish  to  change  the  combination.  Because  of  the  persist- 
ence and  the  correlation  of  forces,  observers  know  what  will 
happen  if  they  would  modify  the  law  by  which  any  force 
operates,  or  would  counteract  one  form  of  force  by  another. 
Immense  advantage  has  come  to  the  students  of  nature  by 


The  Immanence  of  God  65 

reason  of  these.  In  fact,  Evolution  was  made  possible  be- 
cause these  truths  were  at  the  bottom.  It  surely  is  not  neces- 
sary that  we  should  stop  here  to  oudine  this  marvel  of  the 
century,  which  has  in  fact  revolutionized  thought,  and  man's 
ideas  of  the  world  in  which  he  lives.  Let  it  be  said,  only,  that 
the  doctrine  of  Evolution  is  admissible  only  on  a  basis  of  a 
single  directing  indwelling  Force.  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  who 
has  the  honor  of  being  the  only  one  thus  far  who  has  made  a 
comprehensive  statement  of  evolution  as  carried  into  all  depart- 
ments, asserts  ''  One  truth  must  ever  grow  clearer  and  clearer — 
the  truth  that  there  is  an  Inscrutable  Existence  everywhere 
manifested.  *  *  *  Amid  mysteries  which  become  the  more 
mysterious  the  more  they  are  thought  about,  there  will  remain 
the  one  absolute  certainty,  that  we  are  ever  in  the  presence  of 
an  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy,  from  which  all  things  pro- 
ceed." (Principles  of  Sociology,  iii :  175.)  Let  us  gather  a 
bit  of  the  significance  of  all  this.  The  whole  universe  of 
material  things  is  controlled  by  a  single  Force  which  operates 
under  different  forms;  this  force  not  only  operates  upon 
Matter,  but  because  Matter  is  submissive  to  it,  it  is  mani- 
fested through  Matter.  This  one  Energy,  scientists  afifirm  to 
be  an  Infinite  Energy.  The  testimony  of  Experimental  Science 
is  then,  that  the  world  of  substances  manifests  an  immaterial 
Energy,  which  Energy  is  considered  necessary  to  explain  the 
origin  and  the  present  life  and  progress  of  all  existing  things. 
All  of  which  is  remarkably  significant;  in  fact,  it  could  not 
be  more  so,  because  Science  could  not  go  farther,  and  remain 
scientific.  She  has  here  led  us  to  the  limit  of  her  possible  seek- 
ing with  the  weights  and  crucibles,  and  measures  of  experi- 
ment.   What  else  she  might  say  would  be  outside  her  domain. 

Turn  now  to  the  realm  of  inner  nature,  the  region  of 
thought  and  consciousness.  Has  there  been  any  work  there 
which  is  better  than  the  old-time  speculations  ?  What  have  the 
students  of  the  brain,  and  its  activities  to  say  about  God, — 
anything? 

The  method  of  experiment  has  been  employed  here,  as  well. 


66        Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

Formerly  psychologists  dogmatized,  because  of  the  paucity  of 
observations,  and  of  the  ignorance  of  how  to  make  them.  In 
Germany,  the  whole  subject  of  Psychology  has  occupied  the 
attention  of  some  of  the  profoundest  men.  It  was  taken  as  a 
basis  of  investigation,  that  the  senses  in  different  persons  vary 
appreciably;  that  is,  one  man  is  more  sensitive  in  the  matter 
of  touch  for  instance  than  another.  It  took  less  time  for  the 
sensation  to  travel  from  his  finger-tip  to  his  brain.  So  with 
other  senses.  When  this  was  perceived,  laboratories  were  set 
up  wherein  measurements  of  such  difference  could  accurately 
be  made.  It  was  hoped  from  a  sufificient  number  of  trust- 
worthy measurements  to  deduct  a  law  for  guidance  in  further 
investigations.  Experimenting  continued  very  patiently,  and 
with  rather  monotonous  results,  except  to  those  specially  in- 
terested. But  the  conclusion  was  most  startling  in  its  far- 
reaching  suggestiveness.  Early  in  the  century  the  brain  was 
said  to  "  secrete  thought  as  the  liver  secretes  bile."  This  was 
the  only  way  in  which  it  could  be  understood  that  thought  was 
a  function  of  the  brain.  Physiologists  had  dissected  the  brain, 
and  by  many  observations  had  concluded  that  consciousness 
was  due  to  a  "  molecular  change  in  the  gray  matter."  In- 
vestigation was  kept  on  this  materialistic  level.  But  within 
the  last  ten  or  twenty  years  a  different  idea  of  the  brain's  ac- 
tivities has  come  into  favor.  It  starts  with  the  old  saying 
that  to  originate  is  not  the  only  function  known  to  physics  or 
physiology.  There  is  a  transmissive  function  as  well.  That 
is,  there  is  another  way  to  get  light — let  us  say, — than  from 
the  originating  lamp ;  it  may  come  to  us  through  the  window. 
This  is  a  transmissive  function.  So,  the  brain  may  not  only 
originate  consciousness,  it  may  just  as  truly  be  the  organ  to 
transmit  it.  What  a  tremendous  step  was  taken  when  that 
theory  was  brought  forward.  As  Prof.  William  James,  of 
Harvard,  says  ("Human  Immortality,"  p.  i6)  :  "Suppose 
the  whole  universe  of  material  things  should  turn  out  to  be  a 
mere  surface-veil  of  phenomena,  hiding  and  keeping  back  the 


The  Immanence  of  God  67 

world  of  genuine  realities.  Such  a  supposition  is  foreign 
neither  to  common  sense  nor  to  philosophy.  *  *  * 

"  Life  like  a  dome  of  many-coloured  glass, 
Stains  the  white  radiance  of  eternity." 

Admit  now  that  our  brains  are  such  thin  and  half-transparent 
veils,  what  would  happen?  Why,  as  the  white  radiance  comes 
through  the  dome,  with  all  sorts  of  staining  and  distortion 
imprinted  on  it  by  the  glass,  *  *  *  even  so  the  genuine 
matter  of  reality,  the  life  of  souls  as  it  is  in  its  fullness,  will 
break  through  our  severed  brains  into  this  world  in  all  sorts 
of  restricted  forms,  and  with  all  the  imperfections  and  queer- 
nesses  that  characterize  our  finite  individualities  here  below." 
This  sets  forth  the  idea  as  clearly  as  anything.  Our  indi- 
viduality is  made  by  the  varying  elements  of  our  life  which  we 
derive  from  heredity  or  circumstances,  or  mental  attainments, 
or  the  material  body  itself.  These  factors  all  vary ;  and  these 
factors  restrain  the  full  coming  through  of  this  outside  con- 
sciousness in  its  amazing  fullness.  But  what  is  this  Con- 
sciousness outside  ourselves  ?  What  is  it  that  the  brain  trans- 
mits, if  we  grant  that  it  transmits  anything?  We  ask  Spen- 
cer, again,  because  he  has  most  liking  for  what  is  tangible, 
and  can  be  demonstrated  and  examined.  He  says  about  this 
Consciousness :  "  The  final  outcome  of  that  speculation  com- 
menced by  the  primitive  man,  is  that  the  Power  manifested 
throughout  the  universe  distinguished  as  material,  is  the  same 
Power  which  in  ourselves  wells  up  under  the  form  of  con- 
sciousness." ("Principles  of  Sociology,"  iii,  p.  171.)  So 
the  witness  of  Experimental  Science  and  the  latest  researches 
in  Psychology  come  to  the  same  conclusion :  there  is  a  power 
manifested  in  the  world  of  things  and  the  world  of  men;  this 
power  is  one  and  the  same  under  different  forms  of  manifesta- 
tion ;  and  that  is  the  "  manifestation  "  of  the  Infinite  and 
Eternal  Energy,  the  spirit-reality  behind  matter,  the  spirit-re- 
ality of  our  own  lives. 


68        Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

But  the  question  may  still  be  asked,  and  with  reasonable- 
ness, How  do  these  conclusions  have  any  bearing  upon  the 
idea  of  God,  as  theology  should  declare  that  idea  ?  There  may 
be  testimony  to  the  prevalence  of  spirit,  but  is  not  that  spirit 
so  unlike  the  idea  of  God  as  to  be  almost  foreign?  Is  there 
not  a  chasm  so  wide  between  this  impersonal  Energy  and  the 
personal  God  as  to  leave  the  problem  still  in  doubt  ?  The  ques- 
tion is  perfectly  fair,  and  its  answer  must  be  attempted.  But 
first  it  ought  to  be  said  that  neither  Science  nor  Psychology 
could  say  any  more  than  they  have  said  about  this.  They  are 
limited  by  the  terms  of  their  study.  They  cannot  go  beyond 
those  terms  and  remain  Science  and  Psychology.  What 
lies  beyond  belongs  to  another  department  of  thought. 
In  the  domain  of  each,  each  has  authority.  Outside  that  do- 
main the  conclusion  is  shorn  of  that  authority ;  it  is  speculation 
or  logical  conclusion.  When  either  Science  or  Psychology 
steps  outside  its  bounds,  the  statements  made  may  be  suggestive 
and  illuminating,  but  they  have  no  scientific  or  psychological 
sanction.  When,  therefore,  I  read  of  "  an  infinite  and  eternal 
Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed '  and  recognize  the 
description  of  the  working  of  that  energy  as  corresponding  to 
what  I  should  expect  my  God  to  do  in  the  same  realm;  when 
in  the  matters  of  scientific  study  I  see  what  corresponds  to  my 
idea  of  God,  then  I  say  that  Science  has  borne  what  testimony 
she  could  to  Deity,  and  for  me,  God  is  thus  recognized  through 
His  operation  whether  the  name  be  spelled  "  e-n-e-r-g-y  "  or 
''  G-o-D."''  And  when  Psychology  declares  that  my  brain  trans- 
mits to  my  life  the  Universal  Consciousness,  I  know  that  Psy- 
chology has  said  all  that  she  could  say  as  Psychology  to  es- 
tablish my  faith  in  God. 

With  reference  to  the  question  as  to  the  personality  of  that 
to  which  such  unflinching  testimony  is  borne,  only  an  outline 
can  be  given  of  an  argument  which  all  must  develop  for  them- 
selves. The  problem  is  how  to  enlarge  the  truth  of  Energy 
into  the  truth  of  Divine  personality? 

Personality  is  too  often  confused  with  the  form  of  an  indi- 


The  Immanence  of  God  69 

vidual.  A  personal  God  is  thought  of  by  many  as  only  an 
enlarged  man,  as  it  were.  Personality  is  often  set  aside  because 
to  some  it  is  too  anthropomorphic  to  enter  into  their  thought  of 
God.  But  impersonality  is  really  as  anthropomorphic  as  per- 
sonality. "  Force  "  is  as  much  at  fault  in  this  as  "  Father." 
Both  are  terms  of  our  cognizance,  consequently  both  are  an- 
thropomorphic, essentially.  Without  making  definitions,  let 
us  see  if  we  cannot  come  to  an  understanding  of  this  person- 
ality of  God.  Thus  we  shall  be  more  scientific  than  if  we 
make  our  definition  and  proceed  to  prove  it. 

Suppose  you  say  that  Force, — Power, — governs  the  Uni- 
verse. Force  cannot  direct  itself,  any  more  than  a  wild-cat  en- 
gine which  goes  thundering  along  the  railway  until  it  runs  into 
something,  or  the  fires  burn  themselves  out.  Force  always 
runs  along  certain  lines,  and  will  keep  on  unless  stopped,  or 
directed.  It  cannot  direct  itself,  nor  does  it  know  any  modi- 
fications. It  must  always  be  the  same,  under  the  Scientific 
doctrine  of  the  Persistence  of  Force.  But  the  equally  Scien- 
tific doctrine  of  the  Transformation  of  Energy  demands  a 
power  which  can  change.  There  must  be  a  power  to  force,  to 
make  possible  these  transformations.  We  can  see  how  that 
power  works  whenever  we  take  a  natural  force  and  use  it  in 
inventions.  Force  can  be  set  aside,  or  turned  aside,  or  trans- 
formed by  another  power;  hence  Force  itself,  and  as  Force, 
cannot  be  the  ultimate  controlling  agent  in  the  universe. 
Scientists  have  seen  that  difBculty;  and  the  later  scientists 
have  declared  that  Will  is  the  ultimate  agent.  Will-power  is 
stronger  than  natural  Force.  But  is  will-power  impersonal? 
Is  will  an  attribute  of  the  stone,  or  of  the  cloud  ?  Surely  not : 
it  is  a  personal  power,  i.  e.,  it  belongs  to  people,  let  us  say  just 
now  instead  of  to  "  persons."  But  this  does  not  answer  the 
question  finally,  because  there  are  indications  of  something 
like  will-power  in  animals.  And  there  is  room  for  debate  on 
the  question  of  an  animal  personality.  Then,  too,  will-power 
may  be  arbitrary,  capricious,  unless  itself  is  directed  by  a 
somewhat  higher  and  still  more  powerful.     We  do  not  find 


yo  Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century- 
caprice  in  the  great  movements  of  nature ;  on  the  contrary  we 
do  find  a  most  astonishing  orderliness,  and  a  regularity  which 
can  be  relied  upon;  which  would  be  utterly  impossible  in  a 
universe  which  should  be  under  capricious  or  arbitrary  or 
wilful  control.  Within  ourselves  we  recognize  the  existence 
of  a  power  greater  than  Will.  Your  will-power  directs  and 
controls  your  muscular  power;  but  what  directs  and  controls 
your  Will?  Your  reason,  or  your  love.  There  is  nothing 
greater  than  the  power  of  Love.  It  has  inspired  the  noblest 
of  martyrdoms;  has  made  and  unmade  kingdoms;  has 
swerved  the  determination  of  men  hither  and  yon;  and  in  all 
the  world  of  men  and  women  there  is  no  force  so  masterful  as 
Love.  At  the  same  time,  there  is  nothing  so  intensely  per- 
sonal, which  is  so  absolutely  characteristic  of  personality  as 
Love.  Force  cannot  love ;  Will  may  not  love ;  yet  Force  and 
Will  are  everywhere  submissive  to  Love.  Whatever  it  be  that 
controls  creation,  must  have  in  itself  this  element  of  love,  or 
there  is  in  the  created  thing  a  power  vaster  and  higher  than  in 
the  Creator.  An  inexorable  rule  of  logic  forbids  that  you 
have  in  the  conclusion  what  is  not  implied  in  the  premises. 
You  cannot  have  in  a  part  of  creation  anything  greater  than  ex- 
ists in  the  controller  of  creation  as  a  whole.  If  personal 
power — as  love — is  in  men,  then  the  infinite  Spirit  which 
guides,  controls,  enables  men,  must  have  that  same  power,  and 
consequently  must  be  personal.  When  once  we  have  divested 
our  thinking  of  the  crude  idea  that  personality  is  form,  then 
we  can  see  that  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy  must  be  per- 
sonal, or  man  the  created  is  greater  than  God  the  creator. 

This  is  the  line  of  argument,  very  imperfectly  developed, 
which  would  go  toward  the  establishing  the  personality  of 
God  as  necessary  even  to  the  naturalistic  interpretation  of  the 
world  phenomena.  All  of  this  investigation,  crowned  by  the 
insistence  upon  the  personality  of  God,  is  simply,  of  course, 
the  completed  doctrine  of  Divine  Immanence,  of  theology. 
To  this  doctrine,  the  age  bears  satisfactory  and  triumphant 
witness. 


The  Immanence  of  God  71 

Certain  conclusions  must  come  from  all  this.  We  cannot 
stop  in  Materialism  as  the  ultimate  solution  of  things  fur- 
nished by  Science  because  Science  herself  is  more  than  mate- 
rialistic in  her  statements  and  irresistible  deductions.  We 
cannot  substitute  Science  for  a  more  complete  and  spiritual 
idea  because  Science  herself  is  so  spiritual  as  to  cause  us  to 
be  guilty  of  being  unscientific  if  we  stop  before  she  has  led  us 
to  the  ultimate  of  her  own  declaring.  We  cannot  take  Ex- 
perimental Science  alone,  because  Psychology  has  a  word  that 
entitles  her  to  be  heard.  We  cannot  rest  in  Psychology  alone, 
because  Science  as  well  as  Psychology  tells  of  spirit.  If  we 
listen  to  what  all  say,  and  carry  their  statements  out  along  the 
road  which  they  point  out  but  which  they  cannot  pursue  be- 
cause they  are  simply  departments  of  thought,  we  shall  reach 
no  conclusion  other  than  that  the  ultimate  reality  of  this  uni- 
verse is  spirit;  that  this  spirit  wells  up  within  each  one  of  us 
in  the  form  of  consciousness;  that  this  spirit  is  the  infinite 
personal  God, — immanent  in  all  His  works  and  in  us  men  and 
women  (who  are  thereby  His  children), — who  is  the  Source 
of  ideals,  the  Present  Power  toward  their  ultimate  realization, 
and  Surety  of  future  existence,  because  he  is  the  indwelling 
Eternal  Power,  which  by  the  demand  of  the  scientific  doctrine 
of  the  Persistence  of  Force  must  last  on  past  every  change  in 
its  embodiment,  even  the  stupendous  change  called  Death. 


Evolution  in   Its   Relation   to   Man   and 

Religion 


Evolution  in  Its  Relation  to  Man  and 

Religion 

Special  Creation  —  Not  Evolution 

BY 

The  Very  Reverend  H.  MARTYN  HART,  D.D, 

THE  race,  in  its  mental  phases,  is  well  illustrated  by  the 
individual.  A  man  of  active  mind  and  persistent 
endeavor  finds  himself  absorbed  at  different  times  of  his 
life  with  different  subjects  of  investigation.  So  is  it  with 
the  aggregate  intelligence  of  the  world;  it  has  its  mental 
phases.  During  this  nineteenth  century  it  has  been  in  the 
scientific  phase.  Purely  speculative  philosophy  has  gradually 
waned  until  the  field  of  mental  energy  has  become  wholly  oc- 
cupied with  scientific  quest. 

The  profession  of  science  is  to  know.  It  observes  and 
states;  if  it  deduces  it  is  only  that  experiment  may  give  war- 
rant to  its  theory  and  add  another  fact  to  the  repertoire  of  cer- 
tain things.  Imagination  is  the  scout  of  investigation.  To 
account  for  what  he  sees,  the  man  of  science  guesses,  and 
then  proceeds  to  observe  in  order  that  he  may  verify,  or  aban- 
don his  supposition.  How  the  visible  order  of  creation  came 
to  be  what  it  is,  has  always  been,  to  every  generation,  an  in- 
teresting question. 

Human  intellect  reached  its  highest  development  with 
the  Greeks.  Sir  Francis  Galton  tells  us  that  the  Greek  intel- 
ligence was  as  far  beyond  ours  as  we  are  superior  in  mental 
equipment  to  the  African  negro.  And  yet,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  few  splendid  but  unsupported  guesses,  the  Greek  in- 
telligence  threw  no  light  on  the  raison  d'etre  of  the  visible 
creation.  For  eighteen  centuries  of  the  Christian  era,  men 
were  content  not  to  enquire,  and  if  any  imaginative  writer 
ventured  to  give  some  reply  to  the  constant  desire  to  know 

75 


76         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

how  these  things  came  to  be,  he  wrote  arrant  nonsense;  it  is 
a  standing  wonder  how  reasonable  men  could  be  found  to 
copy,  and  at  all  preserve,  such  senseless  guesses. 

Then  the  mind  of  the  world  turned  down  the  path  to  which 
Bacon  had  pointed,  and  a  flood  of  light  at  once  burst  upon 
the  processes  and  constitution  of  nature.  Men  traced  with 
such  success  the  links  of  the  chain  of  cause  and  effect  that  by 
the  middle  of  the  century  they  thought  complete  discovery  was 
within  reach.  Dr.  Bastian  declared  he  could  produce  life ;  that 
given  a  certain  assemblage  of  atoms,  life  would  appear.  Tyn- 
dall,  however,  dissipated  the  theory  of  spontaneous  genera- 
tion; and  the  mysterious  artificer  remained  as  completely  a 
mystery  as  ever.  Still  the  very  trend  of  the  scientific  dispo- 
sition is  to  account  for  what  is,  by  the  operation  of  forces  and 
devices  which  are  in  sight.  It  is  the  favorite  assertion  of  the 
natural  scientific  mind,  that  we  can  account  for  the  things  that 
are,  without  appealing  to  powers  that  are  beyond  our  ken; 
that  we  need  not  invoke  the  supernatural  to  explain  the  nat- 
ural. This  is  the  logical  attitude  of  the  scientific  mind. 
When,  therefore,  Mr.  Darwin  published  his  theory  and 
brought  to  its  support  such  a  vast  array  of  observed  facts, 
marshalling  them  with  the  skill  of  a  consummate  general  to 
support  his  position,  the  scientific  world  shouted  with  one 
voice  "  eureka " !  The  whole  multitude  rushed  down  the 
newly  opened  path ;  a  few  of  the  more  thoughtful  stood  on  one 
side,  but  only  a  few,  and  their  feeble  protests  were  drowned 
in  the  universal  acclaim — Evolution. 

But  the  flood  tide  is  past,  and  even  Mr.  Huxley  was  con- 
strained to  say  "  Darwin's  theory  is  not  satisfactory  but  it's 
the  best  in  sight."  Such  a  taking  idea  powerfully  appealed  to 
the  ready,  thirsty  mind;  it  was  gladly  received;  the  scientific 
thought  of  the  world  became  so  fully  occupied  with  it  that  it 
filled  the  whole  outlook,  and  evolution  was  expected  to  account 
for  everything;  instead  of  listing  evolution  as  one  of  the  many 
agents  detailed  to  fill  the  world  with  charming  variety,  it  has 
been  made  to  reign  alone.    Too  much  has  been  expected  of  it; 


Evolution  77 

and  as  is  always  the  case,  it  is  beginning  to  fall  into  disrepute ; 
only  beginning,  it  is  true,  but  evolution  is  stepping  down 
from  the  throne. 

From  the  very  outset  of  the  Darwinian  craze  there  were 
men  who  kept  their  heads.  They  pertinently  asked,  *'  If  en- 
vironment and  the  struggle  for  existence  are  to  be  credited 
with  the  marvellous  diversity  of  animal  and  vegetable  life, 
why  is  it,  that  the  process  is  not  now  in  evidence  ?  Why  is  it, 
that  we  have  not  presented  to  us,  a  whole  gamut  of  creatures 
passing  by  easy  gradients  from  one  species  to  another?  " 

The  reply  that  the  intermediaries,  not  having  reached  fixed 
and  valuable  distinctions,  were  hipped  in  the  race  and  died 
out,  is  a  very  feeble  and  unsatisfactory  answer.  Because  even 
if  this  were  so,  we  should  have  the  process  going  on  before  us, 
and  we  should  have  the  opportunity  of  witnessing  the  disappear- 
ance of  some,  at  least,  of  these  transition  forms.  But  none  are  in 
sight.  If  the  causes  Darwin  suggested  are  responsible  for  pro- 
ducing what  we  see,  and  if  these  causes  are  natural,  and  have 
been  and  always  are  in  action,  then  the  animal  kingdom,  instead 
of  being  divided  into  species,  distinct  and  permanent,  would  be 
in  inextricable  confusion ;  by  this  time  all  dividing  lines  would 
have  been  obliterated  and  classification  would  be  impossible. 
One  would  have  thought  that  the  single  observation,  that  Hy- 
brids are  sterile  would  have  thrown  the  gravest  doubt  upon 
the  theory,  that  all  had  come  from  the  same  protoplasm  and 
were  therefore  of  the  same  sort.  But  so  far  from  nature 
showing  any  disposition  to  mingle  classes  by  evolving  one 
class,  by  gradual  changes,  from  another,  and  cross  breeding 
would  be  presumed  to  be  an  eminent  factor  in  the  process,  she 
puts  her  veto  upon  the  first  attempt,  and  even  in  the  case  of 
such  neighborly  animals  as  donkeys  and  horses  she  decrees 
that  their  co-habitation  shall  not  be  allowed  beyond  the  first 
venture,  and  has  ruled  that  mules  shall  be  sterile. 

Again,  if  evolution  were  responsible  for  the  production  of 
all  the  vast  diversity  of  the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms, 
why  should  the  best  have  appeared  first?    Or  why  should  not 


yS        Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

the  best  be  with  us  now  ?  At  the  very  dawn  of  life  the  Trilo- 
bite  looked  out  upon  his  world  with  a  wondrous  eye — a  pyra- 
mid of  eyes,  indeed,  a  far  more  capable  and  complex  organ 
than  the  eyes  now  in  use ;  curious,  that  at  the  very  outset  evo- 
lution should  have  made  such  bounding  progress.  And  if 
evolution  had  achieved  such  masterpieces  as  the  monarchs  of 
the  fish  world  in  the  Devonian  times,  and  such  glorious  crea- 
tures as  the  pterodactyls  later  on,  why  should  the  kingly  power 
have  lapsed  ?  Why  should  degeneracy  have  set  in  and  evolution 
stayed  its  progress?  Why  should  it  not  have  produced  still 
mightier  monarchs,  and  not  left  us  with  their  reduced  and  puny 
representatives  ?  Or  look  at  the  butterfly  nation.  Who  can  for  a 
moment  believe  that  the  interminable  variation  of  color  and 
design  can,  in  any  sense,  be  the  product  of  utilitarian  desires? 
If  the  gorgeous  decorations  of  the  flitting  beauties  be  for  the 
purpose  of  sexual  attraction,  or  even  for  escape  from  birds 
when  resting  on  flowers  of  similar  hue,  why  should  not  all 
butterflies  be  more  or  less  alike?  Or  why  should  the  under- 
side of  the  wings  of  some  moths  be  exquisitely  painted  when 
the  wing  is  only  spread  by  night,  and  as  far  as  we  can  com- 
prehend, has  actually  no  opportunity  of  exhibition?  Evolu- 
tion will  not  account  for  these  things.  Then  what  will?  Let 
analogy  lead  to  the  reply. 

There  must  be  as  many  orders  of  life  above  us  as  there  are 
below  us.  It  is  unreasonable,  unscientific,  to  deny  these  mighty 
Intelligences  less  power  over  material  organizations  than  we 
ourselves  possess.  We,  by  the  use  of  processes  which  an  em- 
pirical experience  has  hit  upon,  can  work  magical  changes  in 
the  floral  world  without  even  guessing  the  cause  by  which  our 
results  are  effected.  If  we,  blindly  groping,  can  work  such 
wonder  as  to  produce  the  American  Beauty  from  the  wild  rose, 
what  must  be  the  capability  of  the  Intelligence  above,  who  can 
manipulate  vitality  at  its  very  source  and  from  its  initial  im- 
petus direct  the  every  detail  of  its  future  career?  Once  admit 
that  the  visible  world  is  a  working  model  of  the  invisible  world. 


Evolution  79 

and  all  perplexity  as  to  the  peopling  of  the  earth  and  the  seas 
with  an  interminable  variety  of  organism  is  at  an  end. 

This  new  fountain  pen,  which  I  am  using,  is  the  latest 
development  of  this  most  useful  article.  This  implement  is 
the  product  of  the  inventive  genius  of  a  hundred  men;  each 
one  of  these  inventors  improved  upon  the  work  of  somebody 
else.  Use  this  analogy  to  account  for  the  form  and  coloring 
of  some  animal.  Some  Intelligence,  within  whose  capability 
it  is  so  to  manipulate  vitality  that  it  will  secrete  an  organism 
of  a  certain  design,  starts  such  a  creature  on  its  existence; 
this  same  Intelligence,  or  another,  observing  the  creature  thus 
designed,  conceives  of  an  improvement  or  a  variation  in  form ; 
using  the  model  to  his  hand,  he  produces  another  vitality 
which  has  the  property  of  building  up  for  its  habitation  and 
for  the  propagation  of  its  kind,  a  body  of  a  new  design. 

The  variety  of  the  world  of  life  is  no  doubt  produced  in  the 
same  way  as  the  variety  of  things  with  which  we  have  sur- 
rounded ourselves.  The  inventive  faculty  of  the  Intelligences 
above  us  is  accountable  for  the  one,  just  as  the  inventive 
genius  of  men  is  the  cause  of  the  other.  It  is  not  sensible  to 
object  that  the  Spiritual  has  no  capability  of  manipulating  the 
material,  for  these  bodies  of  ours  are  the  work  of  that  germ  of 
vitality  which  was  the  contribution  of  each  of  our  parents. 
That  a  protoplasmic  cell  should  have  in  its  inert  matter  the 
prodigious  capability  of  producing  my  body  which  carries  in 
it  a  memory  of  my  father  and  mother,  is  a  suggestion  too 
absurd  to  entertain.  That  unseen,  indescribable,  and  as  yet 
wholly  unobserved  power  we  call  **  life  "  is  the  mysterious 
agent  which  builds  up  all  organisms.  That  this  "  life  "  can 
have  impressed  upon  it  definite  characteristics,  is  evident  from 
the  patent  results.  Take,  for  example,  the  cell  of  the  bee.  It 
is  a  problem  many  a  mathematician  has  solved,  what  shall  be 
the  shape  of  a  cell  which  shall  contain  the  most  honey  and  be 
of  the  maximum  strength,  with  the  least  expenditure  of  wax. 
The  answer  to  this  question  is,  that  the  cell  must  be  hexagonal, 


8o        Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

that  the  two  angles  of  the  rhomb  shall  be  109  deg.  28  min. 
16  sec.  and  70  deg.  31  min.  44  sec,  that  the  cell  shall  have  a 
certain  slope  in  relation  to  its  upper  and  lower  attachments. 
It  is  perfectly  clear  that  some  Intelligence,  whose  mind  works 
in  the  same  way  as  our  minds  do,  solved  that  problem;  and 
when  that  Intelligence  produced  the  bee  vitality,  this  fact  was 
impressed  upon  the  character  of  the  '*  life  " ;  so  that  when  that 
*'  life  "  builds  up  for  its  occupation  a  body,  the  organ  which 
supplies  the  bee  with  intelligent  direction,  which  we  call  instinct, 
causes  this  thought  to  come  into  operation,  and  the  creature 
uses  the  result  of  mental  acumen  of  the  Intelligence  which  in- 
vented him,  without  being  at  all  capable  of  following  the  rea- 
sons which  led  to  the  conclusion.  There  is  no  other  feasible 
way  of  explaining  the  phenomenon"  of  instinct.  All  those 
possible  variations  and  rudimentary  organs,  triumphantly 
pointed  to  in  support  of  the  Darwinian  theory  are  latent  pos- 
sibilities included  in  the  original  character  of  the  '*  life  *\ 
placed  there  ready  for  emergency.  Just  as  the  modern  loom 
is  provided  with  apparatus  which  is  called  into  play  only  when 
the  shuttle  thread  accidentally  breaks,  in  this  emergency  the 
contrivance  comes  into  action  and  the  loom  stops. 

There  is  no  better  proof  that  the  world  of  life  has  been  peo- 
pled by  special  creation,  and  if  anything  is  due  to  evolution, 
the  capabilities  of  change  under  certain  circumstances  were 
registered  in  the  original  quality  of  the  ''  life  " — than  man 
himself.  If  man  was  the  product  of  this  gigantic  Intelligence, 
Evolution,  it  was  natural  that  the  quadrumana,  most  of  his 
build,  should  be  considered  his  forbears.  But  it  is  a  long  call 
from  the  best  of  the  monkey  species  to  the  worst  of  the  human 
species.  The  brain  of  the  largest  ape  is  not  more  than  half  the 
size  of  that  of  the  human  infant.  If  we  were  the  product  of 
evolution  it  would  require,  to  bridge  this  chasm,  not  one 
"  missing  link "  but  a  hundred ;  whereas,  not  one  has  yet 
come  in  sight.  As  far  as  we  are  at  present  advised,  man  ap- 
peared suddenly  and  lately,  upon  the  stage  of  mundane  life. 
Mr.  S.  Laing  in  his  "  Human  Origins  "  says  that  only  a  mind 


Evolution  8 1 

hopelessly  prejudiced  will  any  longer  deny  the  existence  of  the 
Tertiary  man;  that  is,  that  man  was  on  this  planet  before  the 
glacial  epoch.  But  Mr.  Laing  is  not  a  geologist,  and  his  asser- 
tion is  worthless  when  contradicted  by  such  an  array  of  au- 
thorities as  Boyd-Dawkins,  Prestwich,  Page  and  LeConte;  or 
to  make  a  convenient  summation  of  the  series,  Sir  John  Evans, 
from  the  elevation  of  the  Presidential  Chair  of  the  British  As- 
sociation last  year  at  Montreal,  after  surveying  the  whole 
field  of  enquiry,  declared  the  Tertiary  man  was  not  yet  in 
sight.  Mr.  Laing  pins  his  faith  to  the  Calaveras  skull  and  the 
Nampa  figurine.  But  these  two  dubious  relics  are  the  product 
of  a  country  which  still  holds  in  keen  memory  Mr.  Barnum's 
Muldoon.  The  astute  showman  befooled  almost  the  whole  of 
scientific  society  by  making,  baking,  burying,  finding  and  ad- 
vertising a  true  fossilized  man.  The  Calaveras  skull,  it  is 
openly  asserted  in  the  neighborhood,  was  placed  in  a  mine 
in  auriferous  sand  which  lies  beneath  a  flow  of  basalt  in 
Calaveras  County,  California ;  if  the  skull  was  a  genuine  find, 
its  owner  lived  before  the  plutonic  volcano  belched  forth  the 
basalt,  at  a  very  early  geological  period.  But  even  if  this  were 
the  case,  the  skull  would  lend  no  support  to  the  evolution 
theory,  for  it  is  similar  to  those  produced  by  the  Indians  of 
the  territory,  to  one  of  whom,  without  a  doubt,  the  Calave- 
ras skull  belonged. 

At  Nampa,  in  Idaho,  a  well  was  being  bored,  the  sand 
bucket  brought  up  a  baked  earthenware  doll  about  one 
and  a  half  inches  long.  One  of  the  oldest  members  of  the  U. 
S.  Geological  Survey,  who  has  worked  over  the  whole  of  that 
area,  writes  to  me  that  he  has  no  doubt  one  of  the  well  sinkers 
dropped  that  "  figurine  "  down  the  bore  to  "  please  the  old 
man  ",  who  was  extremely  curious  as  to  what  came  up  from 
150  feet  below  the  surface.  He  was  gratified  and  apparently 
so  is  Mr.  S.  Laing. 

The  human  remains  found  imbedded  in  the  floors  of  lime- 
stone caves  in  Belgium — of  which  the  most  celebrated  are  the 
Engis  skull,  the  Neanderthal  skull,  and  the  skeleton  of  Cro- 


82        Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

Magnon,  likewise  lend  no  support  whatever  to  the  evolution 
theory.  Whatever  their  age,  and  they  are  certainly  later  than 
the  glacial  period,  they  are  no  different  from  many  skulls  now 
in  use.  The  "  Old  Man  of  Cro-Magnon  "  was  over  six  feet 
high.  Quatrefages,  the  French  naturalist,  compared  his  skull 
with  that  of  a  Bishop  of  Tours  of  the  fourth  century,  and 
whatever  might  have  been  the  peculiarities  of  the  shape  of  the 
hunter's  head,  they  were  even  more  pronounced  in  the  head  of 
the  Bishop. 

All  authorities,  whose  careful  and  unbiassed  observation 
claim  our  respect,  agree  that  the  first  appearance  of  man  on 
our  globe,  as  declared  by  his  relics,  is  a  line  of  men  who  lived 
close  to  the  edge  of  the  melting  glaciers.  In  America  and  Eu- 
rope the  post-glacial  drift,  that  is,  the  banks  of  the  rivers 
formed  by  the  sudden  melting  of  the  ice  cap,  which  in  those 
days  came  far  down  into  our  temperate  zone,  have  furnished 
already  some  3,000  flint  arrow  heads,  stone  knives  and  ham- 
mers, and  culinary  implements.  There  is  no  question  what- 
ever, therefore,  that  man  saw  the  retreating  ice  and  lived  on 
the  edge  of  the  melting  glaciers.  Who  were  these  people,  and 
why  were  they  here  ?  The  common  sense  reply  would  be,  they 
were  men  who  had  migrated  from  the  original  stock,  and  to 
escape  the  intolerable  heat  which  was  melting  the  great  ice 
fields,  they  had  come  so  far  north. 

If  the  Biblical  narratives  of  Genesis  be  history,  this  migra- 
tion must  have  occurred  in  the  four  centuries  between  the 
Flood  and  Abraham's  time;  for  the  patriarch's  days  were  times 
of  literary  activity;  they  were  making  and  reading  famous 
books,  they  had  a  postal  system  and  were  even  translating 
from  Acadian,  then  a  dead  language;  these  are  historical 
times,  and  the  glaciers  must  therefore  have  disappeared  pre- 
vious to  Abraham,  between  him  and  the  Flood;  that  is,  not 
4,000  years  ago.  That  this  was  actually  the  case,  we  are  now 
in  a  position  to  prove.  The  best  measure  of  the  time  since  the 
disappearance  of  the  ice  is  the  wearing  of  the  seven-mile  gorge 
by  the  Falls  of  Niagara;  the  Falls  began  their  eroding  work 


Evolution  83 

when  the  ice  barrier  was  removed  from  the  Mohawk  valley. 
If,  therefore,  we  can  learn  how  long  the  Falls  have  been  in 
existence,  we  shall  know  when  the  glacial  period  terminated, 
and  when  men  began  to  appear  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
melting  ice.  This  problem  has  engaged  the  attention  of  most  of 
the  eminent  geologists ;  and  the  estimate  has  gradually  grown 
less  and  less,  from  ;ihat  of  Desor,  the  French  glacialist,  of 
3,500,000  years,  to  that  of  Dr.  Julius  Pohlman,  of  Buffalo,  who 
has  lately  given  conclusive  reasons  for  believing  that  the  Falls 
have  not  been  in  existence  more  than  3,500  years. 

Some  unwonted  energy  in  the  furnaces  of  the  sun  threw 
upon  the  earth  such  heat  as  to  render  living  in  the  Euphrates 
valley  uncomfortable.  The  meaning  of  the  names  in  the 
**  genealogy  of  Shem ",  in  the  eleventh  chapter  of  Genesis, 
gives  us  a  clear  indication  that  this  was  the  actual  fact.  Many 
people  moved  northwards  to  find  comfortable  existence. 
When  the  iron  implements  they  had  brought  with  them  wore 
out,  they  were  constrained  to  use  flint.  Necessity  was  the 
mother  of  their  invention.  The  shortness  of  the  time  is  no 
detriment  to  this  theory.  In  three  centuries  a  moving  people, 
driven  by  a  permanent  cause,  could  go  over  the  globe.  One 
century,  actual  experience  has  shown,  is  sufficient  for  a 
colony,  cut  off  from  the  mother  country,  to  relapse  into  sav- 
agery. It  is  astonishing  how  rapidly  human  changes  occur. 
It  is  only  a  little  over  three  centuries  since  Queen  Elizabeth 
was  reigning  over  six  million  Anglo-Saxons,  only  one  million 
of  whom  could  read  and  write;  and  now  see  the  dimensions 
and  deeds  of  the  race!  Deterioration  is  naturally  far  more 
rapid  than  advance;  Xenophon  tells  us,  that  in  two  centuries 
after  the  fall  of  Nineveh  even  all  memory  of  the  mighty  city 
had  disappeared,  and  the  desert  covered  its  once  luxuriant 
site. 

We  are  acquiring  a  more  just  estimate  of  the  time  required 
for  geological  and  human  changes ;  and  a  more  careful  reading 
of  the  early  narratives  of  Genesis,  with  an  honest  appreciation 
of  the  geological  history  of  early  man,  will  yet  convince  the 


84        Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

thinking  world  that  man  appeared  suddenly  on  this  planet  six 
thousand  years  ago ;  that  he  was  the  product  of  special  creation 
and  not  the  outcome  of  a  process  of  evolution. 

If  man  be  the  product  of  special  creation,  and  not  the  re- 
sult of  a  process  of  evolution,  then,  if  it  does  not  follow  of 
necessity,  it  becomes  more  than  probable  that  his  religion,  the 
bond  which  binds  him  to  the  unseen  Deity  who  called  him  into 
existence,  was  communicated  to  him. 

The  same  inducements  are  to  be  found,  on  observing  the 
variety  of  religious  sentiments  possessed  by  the  families  of  the 
human  race,  for  believing  that  these  religious  sentiments  are 
the  result  of  evolution  under  different  environments,  as  are 
cited  in  support  of  the  ascent  of  man  from  animal  forms  be- 
neath him.  Just  as  the  palaeolithic  man  is  supposed  to  repre- 
sent the  earliest  stage  of  his  rise  from  the  plane  beneath  him; 
so  the  crude  conception  of  God  and  the  primitive  forms  of 
worship  belonging  to  savage  tribes,  are  supposed  to  be  the  be- 
ginnings of  that  development  of  the  religious  idea  which  finds 
its  latest  and  most  advanced  form  in  the  Christian  religion. 

But  we  have  shown  that  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
the  men  of  the  stone  age  were  descending,  not  ascending ;  that 
they  were  men  who  had  been  driven  to  the  edge  of  the  melting 
ice  under  the  stress  of  the  high  temperature  which  put  an  end 
to  the  glacial  epoch ;  that  whatever  civilization  they  had  known 
in  the  Euphrates  valley,  they  had  lost;  and  compelled  by  the 
necessities  of  roaming  life,  they  were  reduced  to  an  all  but 
savage  state.  The  religious  history  of  the  race  has  a  similar 
record. 

If  man  is  the  work  of  special  creation,  it  is  impossible  to 
suppose  he  was  turned  out  by  his  Maker  in  the  shattered  con- 
dition in  which  we  behold  him  to-day — a  bundle  of  possibilities 
without  capability  of  their  attainment;  the  sport  of  every 
chance;  the  victim  of  a  multitude  of  ailments;  with  a  heart 
biassed  to  evil.  This  cannot  have  been  his  pristine  condition; 
at  first,  he  must  have  been  created  as  morally  complete  as  he 
was  physically.    He  has  evidently  fallen;  but  in  the  ruin  that 


Evolution  85 

he  is,  he  carries  the  memory  of  his  former  greatness.  And  one 
of  the  evidences  of  what  he  used  to  be,  and  one  of  the  hopes 
that  is  with  him  of  regaining  the  estate  that  he  has  lost,  is  the 
instinct  of  prayer  that  is  natural  to  him.  His  heart  has  still 
an  attachment  to  his  Maker  and  his  face  is  still  turned  toward 
the  place  from  which  he  came.  There  must  have  been  a  time 
when  the  "  religio  ",  the  bond  that  bound  him  to  his  Maker 
was  very  close.  Then  he  could  hear  the  voice  of  the  Lord 
God  daily.  The  entrance  of  evil  separated  between  him  and  the 
celestial  world;  now  he  can  hear  no  longer  the  voices  of  the 
other  world ;  he  has  ears  to  hear  but  he  hears  not ;  he  has  eyes 
to  see  but  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God. 

It  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  the  disobedience  of  the  man 
made  an  essential  alteration  in  his  Maker.  Sin  affected  the 
man.  God  was  still  his  Father,  and  at  once,  with  the  solici- 
tude of  a  Father's  heart,  undertook  the  cure  of  the  desperate 
disease  with  which  his  child  had  become  smitten.  He  com- 
municated to  him  the  process  of  cure.  It  is  true  the  man  sup- 
posed the  effect  of  the  cure  was  to  be  almost  instantaneous. 
Eve  called  her  first  son  "  Jehovah  ",  the  deliverer.  But  the 
creator  knew  how  vitiated  had  become  the  springs  of  human 
vitality  and  how  that  the  race  must  have  a  fresh  start  by  the 
importation  of  a  new  and  pure  vitality. 

How  this  new  life  was  to  be  produced,  and  how  it  was  to  be 
obtained  by  each  individual  of  the  race  as  he  crossed  the  stage 
of  human  life,  the  Lord  God  must  have  communicated  to  the 
man,  and  He  committed  the  story  of  this  redemption  to  the 
symbolism  of  sacrifice.  The  proof  of  this  rests  in  the  universal 
practice  of  sacrifice. 

If  the  idea  of  God  be  due  to  evolution,  under  the  impetus  of 
the  instinct  to  pray,  then  it  will  be  necessary  to  show  some 
natural  connection  between  the  ritual  of  sacrifice  and  the  relief 
of  the  sense  of  shame  and  fear  consequent  upon  the  knowledge 
of  guilt.  But  there  is  no  such  natural  connection-  What 
the  killing  of  an  innocent  creature,  the  burning  part  of  it  and 
the  eating  the  rest,  has  to  do  with  propitiating  the  Deity,  en- 


86         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

raged  because  of  the  violation  of  His  supposed  laws,  it  is  im- 
possible for  the  most  fertile  imagination  to  suggest.  To 
account  for  sacrifice  amongst  savages  upon  this  supposition 
would  presuppose  that  the  connection  was  so  evident  that  the 
unintelligent  could  perceive  it;  whereas  its  explanation  has 
taxed  the  philosophic  mind  to  the  utmost,  and  taxed  it  in  vain. 
It  has  been  urged  that  the  basic  idea  of  sacrifice  was  sitting 
down  to  meat  with  the  Deity ;  but  so  many  previous  ideas  must 
be  predicated  as  present  before  that  supposition  could  take 
form,  that  the  application  of  the  theory  to  the  savage  mind  is 
untenable. 

If,  as  is  often  the  case,  we  found  it  universally  held  that 
the  transgressor  inflicted  punishment  upon  himself  to  appease 
the  Deity,  it  would  have  been  no  cause  of  wonder;  but  such 
a  thought  is  by  no  means  universal;  whereas  the  notion  of 
sacrifice  is  so  widespread,  especially  among  ancient  and  prim- 
itive peoples,  that  its  presence  can  be  accounted  for  only  upon 
the  supposition  that  its  institution  was  a  revealed  command, 
and  its  ritual  was  constructed  to  tell  to  successive  peoples,  in- 
dependent of  the  changes  of  language,  the  essential  truths  of 
the  process  of  Redemption.  It  is  impossible  to  see  so  en- 
lightened a  people  as  the  Hebrews  for  2,000  years  persistently 
sacrificing,  with  scrupulous  regard  to  a  prescribed  ritual,  and 
not  admit  that  sacrifice  declared  that  religion  cannot  be  the 
output  of  any  process  of  evolution,  but  was  definitely  revealed 
to  our  first  parents  by  their  Creator,  when  he  found  that  Re- 
demption was  necessary. 

How  degeneracy  occurred;  how  variation  from  the  original 
institution  rapidly  set  in,  St.  Paul  tells  us  in  the  first  chapter 
of  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  we  have  a  pertinent  illus- 
tration of  the  truth  he  advances  in  the  sacrifice  of  Cain.  When 
man,  disliking  the  disobedience  required  by  following  the  pre- 
scribed form  of  sacrifice;  rebelling  against  the  purity  of  its 
teaching  that  for  a  worthy  sacrifice  the  worshipper  must  par- 
take of  the  spotless  innocence  of  the  August  victim  the  animal 
upon  whose  head  he  confessed  his  sins,  typified ;  they  invented 


Evolution  87 

a  ritual  for  themselves,  then  God  "  gave  them  up  to  a  repro- 
bate mind  ". 

To  this  process  may  be  traced  all  those  crude  notions  which 
have  been  used  as  arguments  for  the  evolution  of  religion. 
They  are  not  steps  in  an  upward  movement,  any  more  than 
the  stone  arrow  heads  are  proofs  of  the  dawning  intelligence 
in  ascending  man,  but  they  mark  degeneracy. 

The  earliest  generation  had  a  clear  notion  of  the  moral  na- 
ture of  the  Lord  God  and  a  plain  revelation  of  His  plan  of  sal- 
vation, written  in  the  speaking  symbolism  of  sacrifice;  but  not 
liking  to  have  a  God  of  such  holiness  and  purity  of  nature  in 
all  their  thoughts,  they  gave  themselves  up  to  "  vain  imag- 
inations "  and  deliberately  discarded  the  revealed  for  a  human 
religion  which  should  be  more  in  harmony  with  their  fleshly 
minds;  and  in  the  idolatrous  worship  they  concocted  they 
found  excuse  for  giving  reins  to  their  filthy  lusts.  And  re- 
ligions are  not  proofs  of  the  human  mind  beginning  to  grope 
after  God,  but  of  rapid  departure  from  a  pure  and  revealed  re- 
ligion. 


Evolution  in  Its  Relation  to  Man  and 
Religion 


Evolution  in  Its  Relation  to  Man  and 

Relip-ion 


BY 


EMIL  G.    HIRSCH,  LL.D. 

THE  year  1859  marks  an  incisive  epoch  in  the  history  of 
human  thought.  The  pubHcation  of  Darwin's  re- 
searches and  the  formulation  of  his  hypothesis  gave  a  mighty 
impulse  to  all  studies  concerned  with  the  interpretation  of  na- 
ture's mysteries.  And  as  a  tenant  of  the  circling  globe  man 
himself  was  asked  to  show  the  credentials  to  entitle  him  to  re- 
tain the  proud  position  which  before  had  been  conceded  him 
as  the  chosen  ruler  and  the  appointed  subduer  of  the  earth. 
While  the  story  of  the  planet  was  rewritten  and  life's  ascend- 
ing progression  was  traced  by  new  co-ordinates,  new  charts 
were  also  demanded  and  drawn  by  those  who  would  pilot  man 
to  the  port  of  spiritual  and  moral  certitudes.  Religion  in  a 
degree  no  less  intense  than  physics  or  zoology  fell  under  the 
necessity  of  rearranging  its  household.  The  duty  was  laid 
upon  its  interpreters  to  reexamine  its  possessions  and  to  re- 
formulate its  verities  in  the  terminology  of  the  new  method. 
Under  the  first  shock  of  this  urgency  much  alarm  was  ex- 
pressed lest  by  the  application  of  the  hypothesis  of  evolution 
to  the  phenomena  of  religion  God's  altars  would  crumble. 
Many  voices  were  raised  in  caution  and  in  denunciation.  Bold 
investigators  were  bidden  refrain  from  lifting  the  curtain 
which  had  shielded  against  the  intrusion  of  the  profane  the 
holy  of  holies  of  solemn  and  solid  faith.  On  the  other  hand 
they  were  not  few  who  triumphed  that  the  new  finds  of  nat- 
ural science  and  the  new  key  wherewith  the  runic  signs  of  the 
rocks  and  the  rills,  the  pebbles  and  the  plants  were  deciphered 
had  forever  unmasked  religion  as  an  arrant  usurper  of  the 
throne.     Closer  inquiry  into  the  bearings  of  the  theory  of 

91 


92         Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

evolution  and  its  results  has  quieted  the  early  apprehensions 
and  has  silenced  the  boast  of  religion's  detractors. 

In  the  first  place  the  hypothesis  of  evolution  stands  only  for 
a  method  of  interpretation  of  known  data.  As  such  a  method 
it  cannot  affect  the  facts  to  which  it  is  applied.  The  world 
is  what  it  is  whether  we  read  its  past  in  terms  of  evolutionary 
processes  or  hold  it  to  have  leaped  into  its  present  shape  under 
the  creative  impulse  effective  in  the  very  first  moment  of  its  ex- 
istence. Man  is  the  supreme  fact  and  this  fact  is  unshaken  by 
the  method  to  which  resort  is  had  in  the  curiosity  to  account 
for  it.  Religion  is  a  force  now  vital  and  effective  in  the  life  of 
both  the  now  existing  man  and  the  now  organized  society  and 
this  certitude  is  independent  of  our  theories  and  hypotheses 
framed  to  explain  the  stubborn  fact  and  persistent  force. 
Science  is  always  and  in  every  department  restricted  to  the 
"  how  ".  It  is  incompetent  to  deal  with  the  "  what  ".  The 
line  running  from  the  source  to  the  wave  under  investigation 
is  under  its  inspection.  The  source  itself  is  hidden  from  its 
view.  Evolution  is  incompetent  to  answer  the  inquiry  into 
origins.  It  outlines  processes  subsequent  to  the  origin  and 
leads  up  to  the  results  through  the  processes  grown  out  of  the 
unexplained  and  unaffected  origin.  This  inherent  limitation 
recognized,  religion's  title  is  as  secure  as  ever  it  was,  the  sub- 
stantial acceptance  by  religion's -expounders  of  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  has  removed  or  shaken  none  of  the  sanctuary's  sup- 
porting pillars. 

Furthermore  the  hypothesis  of  evolution  as  the  one  process 
which  life  employs  in  the  successive  unfolding  of  its  phases 
postulates  the  necessity  and  legitimacy  of  whatever  has  come 
to  be  in  the  course  of  this  evolutionary  process.  Religion  is. 
Comparative  anthropology  has  demonstrated  that  religion  is 
one  of  the  universal  functions  differentiating  man  from 
his  predecessors  and  antecedents  in  the  tenure  of  earth.  Where 
man,  there  religion.  This  indisputable  fact  postulates  re- 
ligion's indispensability.  Human  nature  then  is  so  constituted 
as  to  evolve  religion;  religion  must  therefore  correspond  to 


Evolution  93 

a  natural  need  of  man.  He  would  not  have  become  religious 
had  there  not  been  in  his  composition  something  to  which  his 
religiousness  is  the  corresponding  answer.  The  very  theory 
of  evolution  assumes  that  nature  produces  nothing  which  had 
not  to  be.  Whatever  is,  had  to  be.  Religion  being,  it  had 
to  be. 

But  when  examined  under  the  angle  of  view  of  the  evolu- 
tionary hypothesis  the  rights  of  the  higher  religions  to  recog- 
nition will  be  found  to  be  confirmed  much  more  strongly  than 
they  are  without  the  application  of  the  method.  The  equiva- 
lence of  the  various  religions  is  negatived  by  the  very  funda- 
mental assumption  of  a  development  from  the  lower  into  the 
higher.  The  only  classification  which  must  be  abandoned  is 
that  which  divides  religions  into  revealed  and  natural.  This 
division  is  arbitrary.  There  is  no  religion  but  is  credited  by 
its  devotees  to  own  the  higher  credentials  of  a  divine  revela- 
tion. The  Jew  is  convinced  of  this  title  of  his  faith  and  the 
Mohammedan  is  as  strenuous  as  the  Christian  in  this  insist- 
ence. The  new  method  saves  us  from  the  dangers  of  these 
quicksands  of  individual  arrogance.  By  the  fruits,  the  tree 
is  known  and  valued.  If  certain  religions  have  risen  to 
higher  outlooks  and  uplooks  than  others,  their  superiority 
must  be  due  to  an  original  dower  of  superior  vigor,  of  deeper 
sympathy,  of  nobler  spirituality,  or  to  a  difference  in  environ- 
ment and  historical  experience.  But  science  while  enumera- 
ting and  cataloguing  them  is  incapacitated  from  explaining 
the  reason  for  these  original  differences  or  subsequently  dif- 
ferentiated experiences.  It  recognizes  them  and  from  them 
as  its  data  it  draws  its  inferences.  And  thus  the  evolution 
theory  puts  into  a  new  form  but  with  more  definite  empha- 
sis the  old  contention  worded  in  the  phraseology  of  the  old 
theology  which  attributes  to  the  higher  religions  the  author- 
ity of  a  divine  revelation.  Common  in  origin,  rooted  alike 
in  a  universally  human  need,  all  religions  are  authentic 
and  authoritative  but  as  some  have  grown  to  deeper  potency 
than  others  the  evolutionist  thinker  can  have  no  hesitancy  to 


94  Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century- 
press  this  fact  and  deduce  from  it  the  unavoidable  inference 
that  the  reHgion  which  has  attained  to  a  higher  outlook  or 
carries  the  power  of  a  stronger  message  has  demonstrated  its 
superiority  beyond  all  doubt  and  dispute.  In  the  valuation 
of  religions  before  the  forum  of  the  evolution  philosophy  the 
inquiry  into  effects  not  that  into  origin  is  decisive. 

Nor  does  evolution  bear  on  the  tenability  of  the  funda- 
mental tenets  of  the  faith.  God  and  Providence,  redemption 
and  Messianic  fulfilment,  sin  and  atonement  connote  truths 
which  stand  regardless  of  the  media  through  which  the  mind 
looks  at  the  impressive  problems  of  human  life.  Human  life 
has  in  its  evolution  run  in  a  groove  which  for  ever  placed  man 
face  to  face  with  the  perplexity  of  his  destiny  and  duty.  The 
recognition  of  the  want  of  harmony  between  his  ideals  and 
his  conduct,  the  sense  of  weakness  and  imperfection  which 
burns  within  him  is  operative  in  the  mind  and  decisive  in  the 
soul  of  man  whether  we  regard  him  as  the  last  link  in  a  con- 
tinuous chain  of  evolving  life  or  as  a  direct  creation  discon- 
nected from  any  form  of  life  antecedent  to  him.  Religion  re- 
tains its  function  as  the  organ  through  which  answers  are 
given  to  the  searching  and  confiding  heart  and  direction  is 
given  to  the  wavering  will  of  man.  Under  the  impulse  to  all 
studies  by  the  proclamation  of  the  theory  of  evolution  the 
science  of  comparative  religion  was  cradled.  Its  preoccupa- 
tion is  the  investigation  of  the  religious  life  in  all  of  its  mani- 
festations. Its  finds  have  lent  new  emphasis  to  the  truth  that 
religion  is  a  vital  force  in  the  moulding  of  social  factors.  It 
is  the  bond  which  binding  man  to  his  fellowman  leads  the  indi- 
vidual to  the  acknowledgment  of  the  social  will  as  the  superior 
authority  and  from  this  as  a  basis  proceeds  to  the  recognition 
of  the  highest  will  in  the  universe.  The  truths  of  the  highest 
dogmas  are  thus  confirmed  anew  by  the  newest  theories.  They 
require  only  a  reformulation. 

DuBois-Reymond  and  other  great  thinkers  have  not  been 
slow  to  admit  the  limitations  of  the  analytic  methods  of  the 
scientists.     The  origin  of  life,  the  evolution  of  thought  and 


Evolution  95 

consciousness  and  the  rise  of  conscience  are  gaps  in  the  hy- 
pothesis which  to  fill  or  to  bridge  science  is  incompetent. 
Granted  that  man  is  a  descendant  of  the  simian,  the  fact  that 
he  is  no  longer  a  simian  but  speaks  and  thinks  and  progresses 
and  controls  the  forces  of  life  in  a  degree  in  which  none  of  his 
supposed  ancestors  knew  how,  demonstrates  his  inherent  dis- 
tinction over  all  other  beings  and  accentuates  the  exceptional 
position  assigned  to  him  in  the  economy  of  life.  Not  X)ne 
single  jewel  has  been  taken  out  of  his  regal  crown.  To  the 
contrary  the  theory  of  evolution  has  added  new  lustre  to  his 
diadem.  He  is  but  ''  little  less  than  God."  He  shares  the 
creative  energy  with  the  God  who  appears  at  every  link  of  the 
chain  as  the  power  which  is  immanent  in  and  directive  of  the 
long  process  and  from  whose  mind  whatever  has  come  to  be 
is  derivative.  For  involution  is  the  indispensable  premise 
of  evolution.  Nothing  can  be  in  the  result  which  was  not 
potentially  infolded  from  the  very  beginning  in  the  germ. 
If  at  the  end  of  the  chain  of  evolution  man  appears  as  a  think- 
ing, conscious  and  moral  entity,  thought,  consciousness  and 
conscience  must  of  necessity  have  been  involved  in  the  very 
first  impulse  and  the  primitive  components  of  this  process. 
And  as  matter  cannot  have  begotten  what  is  not  material,  as 
action  and  reaction  of  chemical  elements  cannot  event  in 
thought  or  conscience,  the  very  theory  of  evolution  leads  in- 
fallibly to  the  reasonable  assumption  of  mind  and  moral  will 
as  the  ultimate  and  primary  elements  underlying  all  that  has 
come  to  be  or  will  ever  come  to  pass.  Evolution  has  merely 
replaced  by  a  higher  teleology  the  crude  theory  of  purpose  and 
plan  as  maintained  by  former  thinkers.  If  evolution  shows  one 
thing  it  is  this,  that  in  the  chain  of  being  and  becoming,  one 
thing  always  is  for  another,  by  a  law  which  admits  of  no  devia- 
tions. We  are  because  others  were  before  us  and  therefore  we 
must  in  turn  live  under  the  consecration  of  the  solemn  responsi- 
bility which  is  upon  us  for  others.  The  teleology  of  the  evolu- 
tionist is  not  mechanical  but  moral.  Evolution  thus  lends  a  new 
potency  to  the  idea  of  atonement  through  vicarious  sacrifice. 


g6        Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

One  is  for  the  other  and  through  the  other  is  the  insistent  text 
of  this  interpretation  of  life.  An  endless  longing  for  greater 
perfection  and  deeper  harmony  runs  in  ever  increasing  pressure 
along  the  curves  of  evolving  life.  And  this  perfection  and 
peace  come  to  be  realized  through  the  sacrificial  transmission 
of  strength  and  power  and  enthusiasm  and  love  on  the  part  of 
the  great  and  good,  the  "  more  divine  "  of  the  race  whose  life 
is  indeed  an  uninterrupted  dying  that  others  may  have  a  greater 
portion  of  life. 

Evolution  controverts  indeed  the  theory  of  man's  fall.  It 
reads  his  career  on  earth  in  terms  of  a  rise.  Descended  from 
others  lower  than  himself  he  ascends  to  loftier  altitudes.  Sin 
is  result  of  want  of  harmony  between  attainment  and  altitude. 
The  sinner  is  he  who  willingly  lags  behind  in  the  ascent.  Moral 
progress  is  as  insistent  as  is  material  and  physical  evolution. 
The  morally  strong  draw  the  morally  weak  along  in  their  up- 
ward climb.  This  from  the  view  of  evolution  is  the  atoning 
function  of  the  noble  martyrs,  the  crucified.  Their  resurrec- 
tion is  real  in  the  rise  of  their  fellows  to  new  and  noble  pos- 
sibilities. 

Evolution  finally  permits  also  ouitlooks  into  distances  and 
immortalities  unknown  to  the  adherents  of  the  older  methods 
of  reading  God's  signs.  The  process  as  now  surveyed  is  of 
necessity  only  a  part  of  the  mightier  process  still  unrun.  In 
that  process  what  now  is  will  continue  to  be.  What  is  cannot 
cease  being.  It  may  undergo  a  transformation.  But  it  will 
be.  Mind  is,  soul  is.  It  cannot  die.  The  messianic  hope  that 
at  the  end  of  time  this  evolution  will  culminate  in  perfection 
and  peace  is  grounded  and  anchored  in  the  very  elements  of 
the  hypothesis.  It  is  its  necessary  corollary.  Without  it,  the 
theory  fails  at  the  vital  point.     It  is  suspended  in  mid  air. 

He  who  adopts  the  theory  must  modify  his  views  on  the 
value  and  character  of  the  Biblical  books.  Daughters  of  evolu- 
tionary philosophy,  Biblical  criticism  and  the  new  Biblical 
scholarship,  have  thrown  new  light  on  the  documents  collect- 
ively known  as  the  Bible.    We  have  been  taught  to  read  these 


Evolution 


97 


writings  as  literature.  Genesis  is  poetry.  Joshua  is  tribal  tradi- 
tion embellished  in  the  colours  of  folklore.  Israel's  religion  is 
itself  the  outcome  of  a  long  process  of  evolution.  Analysis  of 
the  genius  of  the  nation  that  produced  the  Bible  reveals  pos- 
session of  moral  intuitions  in  a  degree  not  present  among 
other  men.  National  genius  manifests  itself  again  most  strik- 
ingly in  the  nation's  men  of  genius,  the  Prophets.  These,  not 
soothsayers  but  truthsayers,  have  been  the  first  to  apprehend 
that  the  only  efficacious  v^ay  of  bringing  self  and  God  into 
harmony  is  the  way  of  righteousness.  They  proclaim  justice 
and  equity  as  the  pillars  of  God's  throne  the  intentions  of 
God's  government  and  insist  that  human  society  shall  be  built 
on  the  same  foundations.  These  ideas  are  vital.  The  form 
in  which  they  were  put  is  inconsequential.  Religion  is  the  parent 
not  the  child  of  religion.  The  application  of  the  theory  of  evolu- 
tion to  religion  and  the  acceptance  of  its  principal  contentions 
have  not  dethroned  God  nor  refuted  immortality.  They  have 
not  weakened  the  function  of  the  sacrificial  life,  nor  robbed 
man  of  prerogative  or  eased  him  of  obligation.  A  stronger 
foundation  has  been  spread  for  the  temple  of  the  Highest ;  the 
ministry  of  the  higher  religions  at  His  altar  is  confirmed  and 
emphasized  in  a  degree  in  which  it  is  not  under  the  old  method 
of  interpreting  God's  designs  and  formulating  God's  plans  and 
purposes.  Evolution  reveals  man  and  God  as  coefficients  of 
one  and  the  same  force  and  volition. 
And  that  force  and  will  is  Love. 


Scripture  Inspiration  and  Authority 


Scripture  Inspiration  and  Authority 

The  Bible  a  Revelation,  not  an  Evolution 

BY 

The  Reverend  A.  C.  DIXON,  D.D. 

THERE  is  an  evolution  in  nature,  but  not  of  nature ;  in  the 
Bible  but  not  of  the  Bible;  in  man  but  not  of  man.  Life 
evolves  along  the  line  of  its  kind,  and  only  that.  God  has 
created  all  things  and  put  certain  kinds  of  life  and  force  in 
them  to  work  as  his  servants,  and  he  seems  to  have  given  to 
each  kind  very  specific  directions.  Vegetable,  animal,  moral 
and  spiritual  life  does  his  will  without  questioning. 

The  Bible  claims  to  be  a  revelation  from  God,  and  its  char- 
acter sustains  its  claim.  *'  The  word  of  the  Lord  came  ex- 
pressly unto  Ezekiel."  (Ezekiel  1:13.)  "The  Lord  said 
unto  me,"  exclaimed  Jeremiah.  (Jeremiah  1:7.)  "Hear 
the  word  of  the  Lord,"  says  Isaiah.  (Isaiah  i :  10.)  "  Thus 
saith  the  Lord,"  rings  through  the  Old  Testament.  And  the 
New  Testament  puts  the  seal  of  inspiration  upon  the  Old. 
"  The  Holy  Ghost  spake  by  the  mouth  of  David."  (Acts  i : 
16.)  "All  Scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God."  (2 
Tim.  3  :  16.)  "  The  prophecy  came  not  in  old  time  by  the  will 
of  man,  but  holy  men  of  God  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the 
Holy  Ghost."  (2  Peter,  i :  21.)  If  the  men  who  wrote  this 
book  were  not  inspired,  they  were  liars,  and  we  have  to  ex- 
plain how  the  book  which  contains  the  highest  morality  ever 
given  to  earth  could  be  written  by  a  set  of  liars.  And  these 
bad  men  at  the  same  time  wrote  their  own  doom,  for  there  is 
no  vice  more  severely  condemned  in  the  Bible  than  deception. 
To  claim  that  good  men  wrote  the  Bible,  and  deny  its  inspira- 
tion, is  on  a  par  with  the  claim  that  Christ  was  a  good  man, 
while  he  pretended  to  be  what  he  was  not.  Either  horn  of  the 
dilemma  pierces  through  the  opponents  of  revelation.  God 
speaks  for  himself  through  men  whom  he  moves  to  write. 

101 


I02      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

The  purpose  of  the  Bible  is  not  to  speculate  or  argue,  but  to  re- 
veal. It  gives  many  facts  that  man  cannot  learn  without  a 
revelation.  Men  to  reveal  such  facts  must,  therefore,  be  in- 
spired of  God.  No  other  ancient  sacred  book  claims  to  be  a 
revelation  from  God.  The  Bible  is  often  compared  with  the 
Vedas  of  India,  and  the  Zendavesta  of  Persia.  The  Vedas,  a 
collection  of  poems  addressed  to  mythical  deities,  make  no 
claim  to  revelation.  The  Zendavesta,  a  mass  of  speculation 
into  the  origin  of  things,  makes  no  such  claim.  The  Koran, 
and  a  few  other  poor  imitations  of  the  Bible,  would  hardly  have 
thought  of  counterfeiting,  if  they  had  not  had  the  genuine  coin 
before  them. 

2.  The  make-up  and  style  of  the  Bible  mark  it  a  revelation 
from  God.  One  who  is  in  the  habit  of  studying  flowers  and 
trees  and  stars,  as  God  has  scattered  them  in  nature,  must  be 
impressed  as  he  reads  the  Bible  that  the  God  of  nature  is  the 
God  of  the  Bible.  There  is  in  the  book  little  uniformity  and 
plan;  the  book  of  truth  is  like  the  world  of  nature  about  us; 
we  are  invited  to  go  in  and  gather  and  classify.  To  the  de- 
vout naturalist  the  make-up  of  the  Bible  is  a  presumption  that 
the  God  of  nature  is  its  author.  And  it  has  a  style  of  its  own. 
It  is  hard  for  us  to  realize  that  it  is  not  a  book,  but  a  library  of 
sixty-six  books  with  more  than  forty  authors.  Each  author 
retains  his  personality  and  writes  as  the  man  that  he  is.  The 
style  of  the  whole  book  is  unique,  shall  we  not  say.  Divine. 
John  Randolph,  in  his  mature  years  said,  "  It  would  have  been 
as  easy  for  a  mole  to  have  written  Sir  Isaac  Newton's  treatise 
on  optics  as  for  an  uninspired  man  to  have  written  the  Bible." 
And  he  said  this  after  he  had  read  hundreds  of  other  books. 
Disraeli  describes  Sebastian  Castillion's  attempt  to  improve  the 
Bible  by  adding  to  it  the  best  things  of  Shakespeare,  and  other 
eminent  authors.  The  attempt  was  a  failure,  because  even 
Shakespeare's  best,  in  comparison  with  the  Word  of  God,  ap- 
peared poor  and  paltry.  "  What  are  you  doing  this  morn- 
ing?" asked  the  daughter  of  Dr.  Charles  Elliott.  "I  am 
reading  the  news,"  was  his  reply,  as  he  held  an  open  Bible 


Scripture  Inspiration  and  Authority  103 

before  him.  Those  who  have  spent  their  lives  studying  the 
old  book,  find  in  it  news  fresher  than  the  monthly  magazine  or 
morning  newspaper  can  furnish.  It  has  a  depth,  and  height, 
and  length,  and  breadth,  which  the  finite  mind  cannot  fathom. 

3.  The  unity  of  the  Bible  marks  it  as  a  revelation  from  God. 
It  is  made  up  of  sixty-six  books,  written  by  at  least  forty  dif- 
ferent men.  They  differ  in  language,  in  nationality,  in  tastes, 
in  surroundings.  Among  them  were  shepherds,  kings,  fisher- 
men, priests,  mechanics,  physicians,  theologians  and  law-mak- 
ers. Some  were  learned,  others  were  unlettered.  It  was  at 
least  fifteen  hundred  years  in  reaching  maturity.  With  all 
this  variety  there  is  a  marvelous  unity.  From  beginning  to 
end  the  doctrine  of  one  God  is  taught.  Where  did  these 
writers  get  the  idea  of  one  God  ?  Certainly  not  from  the  cul- 
tured nations  about  them.  Herodotus,  who  visited  Egypt  about 
five  hundred  years  before  Christ,  said  that  the  gods  were 
more  plentiful  than  men.  In  India  there  were  three  hundred 
million  gods.  The  Persians  worshipped  well  nigh  everything 
that  they  could  associate  with  fire  and  light.  The  cities,  fields 
and  groves  of  Greece  were  full  of  imaginary  deities,  all  of 
whom  Rome  borrowed  and  worshipped.  And  yet  all  of  these 
writers  for  fifteen  hundred  years  taught  that  there  was  only 
one  God. 

Contrast  the  character  of  the  Jehovah  of  the  Bible  with  any 
of  the  gods  of  the  nations.  Jehovah  is  pure,  just  and  merciful. 
Saturn,  the  son  of  Time,  ate  his  own  children,  and,  when 
Jupiter  was  born,  his  mother  Rhea  gave  the  hungry  old  father  a 
stone  wrapped  in  swaddling  clothes.  While  he  was  gnawing 
on  that,  she  succeeded  in  getting  her  child  out  of  his  reach. 
Jupiter  was  a  licentious,  vindictive,  quarrelsome  wretch.  He 
flung  poor  Vulcan  out  of  heaven  and  maimed  him  for  life,  be- 
cause he  took  his  mother's  part  in  a  family  fracas.  It  was  no 
uncommon  thing  for  Jupiter  and  all  his  train  to  get  drunk  and 
make  the  top  of  Olympus  hideous  with  their  orgies.  The 
scenes  enacted  in  the  worship  of  Baal,  who  kept  thrusting  his 
filthy  presence  upon  the  Israelites  through  the  surrounding 


1 04      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

nations,  and  whom  they  were  base  enough  at  times  to  worship, 
ought  not  to  be  described.  How  different  from  these  wicked, 
sensual  gods  is  the  God  of  the  Bible  who  dwells  in  the  "  high 
and  holy  place,"  and  "  is  of  purer  eyes  than  to  behold  iniquity." 
There  is  also  a  unity  of  purpose  running  through  the  whole 
Bible.  We  see  it  for  the  first  time  in  the  curse  upon  the  ser- 
pent in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  and  for  the  last  time  in  the 
"  Come,  Lord  Jesus,  come  quickly,"  of  the  last  chapter  of 
Revelation.  Its  purpose  is  to  reveal  God  in  Jesus  Christ.  The 
thought,  like  the  rising  sun,  grows  brighter  and  brighter  until 
the  perfect  day  of  the  gospels.  Side  by  side  with  this  revela- 
tion of  Jesus  the  Saviour,  we  have  in  the  Old  Testament  a  dark 
revelation  of  man  as  a  sinner.  This  unity  of  teaching  as  to 
the  one  God,  and  the  holiness  of  that  God,  and  the  coming  of 
Christ,  running  through  so  many  minds  and  so  many  ages 
cannot  be  accounted  for,  except  on  the  ground  that  the  Book 
has  one  Author  who  moved  men  to  write  His  thoughts,  and 
kept  them  from  falling  into  the  errors  of  the  time  in  which  they 
lived.  Stand  by  the  foundation  of  Solomon's  temple  while  it 
is  building.  Here  comes  a  stone  brought  from  a  distant 
quarry,  and  it  finds  its  place  in  the  building  without  the  touch 
of  chisel.  A  second  stone  from  another  quarry  fits  exactly  into 
its  place.  This  continues  day  after  day,  until  every  stone  is 
in  its  place,  and  the  glorious  temple  stands  there  complete.  Do 
you  suppose  for  a  moment  that  these  stones  have  somehow  by 
chance  been  prepared  for  their  places,  and  that  such  a  magnifi- 
cent building  had  no  mind  to  plan  it  and  superintend  its  erec- 
tion? 

"  Whence  but  from  heaven  could  men  unskilled  in  arts 

In  several  ages,  born  in  several  parts 

Weave  such  agreeing  truths?  Or  how  or  why 

Should  all  conspire  to  cheat  us  with  a  lie? 

Unasked  their  pains,  ungrateful  their  advice. 

Starving  their  gains,  and  martyrdom  their  price." 

What  the  Bible  does  not  say  is  a  presumption  in  favor  of  the 
claim  that  it  is  a  revelation  from  God.  It  never  stops  to  gratify 
curiosity.     When  men  write  biographies,  they  are  careful  to 


Scripture  Inspiration  and  Authority  105 

give  details  of  boyhood  and  youth.  We  have  but  one  incident 
in  the  boyhood  of  Jesus.  He  appears  at  twelve  years  of  age, 
and  then  suddenly  disappears.  The  Apochryphal  writers, 
man-like,  have  filled  the  vacancies  with  marvelous  stories  of 
His  childish  pranks  of  power  and  wisdom.  There  is  no  attempt 
in  the  Bible  at  the  marvelous.  Its  simple,  straightforward  tone 
in  narrating  the  most  wonderful  things  is  a  little  more  than 
could  be  expected  of  men  trying  to  establish  a  false  claim  to 
the  miraculous.  The  miraculous  atmosphere  about  it  seems 
to  be  its  native  air.  Some  one  has  truly  said  that  Mohammed, 
Swedenborg,  and  Joseph  Smith  knew  altogether  too  much.  In 
their  straining  after  the  wonderful  and  the  miraculous  they 
showed  the  unreality  of  their  claims. 

5.  The  outspoken  faithfulness  of  the  book  confirms  the  claim 
that  it  is  a  revelation  from  God.  The  Bible  records  without 
apology,  the  sins  of  its  most  prominent  men.  Abraham,  the 
father  of  the  faithful,  lies,  and  the  lie  is  recorded.  David  com- 
mits adultery,  and  though  he  is  king,  his  foul  deed  is  put  down 
in  black  and  white.  Peter  swears  at  the  trial  of  Christ,  and 
though  he  went  out  and  wept  over  it,  the  record  is  there  to  re- 
call his  sin.  Paul  and  Barnabas,  apostles  of  good-will,  quarrel 
and  separate.  The  names  of  obscure  sinners  are  not  men- 
tioned. No  one  knows  the  name  of  the  poor  thief  on  the  cross, 
or  the  woman  who  was  brought  to  Jesus  for  punishment.  Man 
would  have  recorded  them,  and  left  out  Abraham,  David, 
Paul  and  Peter.  Now  and  then  a  man  like  Thomas  Carlyle 
admires  this  Divine  way  of  doing  things,  and  decides  that  he 
would  like  to  have  his  biography  written  after  the  same  fashion. 
Mr.  Froude  attempts  it,  with  the  result  that  no  other  man  will 
make  such  a  request  for  the  next  century;  and  Mr.  Froude 
would  not  have  done  it,  if  he  and  Carlyle  had  been  intimately 
associated  in  the  establishment  of  an  institution,  whose  very 
existence  was  to  depend  largely  upon  the  character  of  its  sup- 
porters. 

6.  The  contents  of  the  Bible  mark  it  a  revelation  from  God. 
There  are  statements  in  it  which  prove  that  it  was  far  ahead  of 


1 06       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

the  knowledge  of  its  time.  Compare  the  teachings  of  science 
to-day  with  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis.  First,  chaos :  "  the 
earth  was  without  form  and  void,  and  darkness  was  upon  the 
face  of  the  deep."  Then  comes  a  period  in  which  there  was  a 
separation  of  the  gases  from  the  Hquids,  clouds  above,  water 
beneath.  That  process  is  described  by  the  words  "  God  made 
the  firmament  and  divided  the  waters  which  were  under  the 
firmament,  from  the  waters  which  were  above  the  firmament." 
The  next  process  was  the  dividing  of  the  liquids  from  the 
solids.  "  Let  the  waters  under  the  heavens  be  gathered  to- 
gether in  one  place,  and  let  the  dry  land  appear."  The  first 
life  that  appeared  was  vegetable  life.  God  said,  "  Let  the 
earth  bring  forth  grass,  the  herb  yielding  seed,  and  the  fruit 
tree  yielding  fruit  after  his  kind."  Then  comes  the  clear  ap- 
pearance of  the  lights  in  the  heavens  ruling  the  day  and  night. 
Next  in  order  are  the  water  animals,  and  then  the  fowl  of  the 
air,  and  the  great  monsters,  wrecks  of  which  are  preserved  in 
our  museums  to-day.  This  order  of  Genesis  is  the  accepted 
geological  order  given  in  science  to-day,  and  this  first  chapter 
of  Genesis  was  written  at  least  three  thousand  years  before  the 
present  scientific  knowledge  existed.  And  in  other  parts  of 
the  book  we  find  statements  which  were  hundreds  of  years 
ahead  of  their  times.  Long  before  Maury  was  born  Solomon 
gave  a  description  of  the  trade  winds.  Thousands  of  years 
before  the  world  ever  heard  of  Copernicus  and  Newton,  Isaiah 
wrote  of  "  the  circle  of  the  heavens,"  and  Job  said,  "  He 
stretcheth  out  the  north  over  the  empty  place,  and  hangeth  the 
world  upon  nothing." 

The  prophecies  of  the  Bible  establish  beyond  a  doubt  that 
the  Bible  is  a  revelation  rather  than  an  evolution.  There  could 
be  no  evolution  giving  future  events.  I  find  in  this  book  the 
biography  of  a  person  written  hundreds  of  years  before  he  was 
born.  His  name,  and  the  place  of  His  birth,  over  which  He 
could  have  no  control,  are  given.  His  character  and  His  recep- 
tion by  the  people  are  so  accurately  given  by  one  of  the  proph- 
ets, that  His  enemies  in  their  despair,  have  claimed  that  this 


Scripture  Inspiration  and  Authority  107 

chapter  was  inserted  after  His  birth,  though  it  is  found  in  a 
translation  of  the  Scriptures  made  over  three  hundred  years 
before  His  birth.  The  manner  of  His  death,  even  to  the  divid- 
ing of  His  garments  among  the  soldiers,  the  piercing  of  His 
body,  the  kind  of  persons  He  would  have  as  His  companions  in 
death,  all  this  and  more  are  given  without  any  attempt  at  double 
dealing.  How  can  we  account  for  it?  By  simply  accepting 
the  claim  that  God,  who  moved  men  to  write  the  Book,  could 
see  ahead  and  tell  what  was  going  to  come  to  pass,  and  that 
He  revealed  to  them  what  they  as  men  could  not  possibly  have 
known.  This  Jesus,  whose  biography  was  written  by  the 
prophets,  is  Himself  a  prophet,  and  tells  His  diciples  that  cer- 
tain things  would  come  to  pass,  while  they  could  see  no  indi- 
cations of  their  approach.  He  said  of  Jerusalem :  "  The  days 
shall  come  upon  thee  that  thine  enemies  shall  cast  a  trench 
around  thee  and  shall  lay  thee  even  with  the  ground,  and  thy 
children  within  thee ;  and  they  shall  not  leave  in  thee  one  stone 
above  another;  because  thou  knowest  not  the  time  of  thy  vis- 
itation.'* (Luke  19:  43-44.)  Now  has  this  been  fulfilled? 
,You  have  but  to  read  Josephus  and  you  will  find  that  it  was 
literally  fulfilled,  when  Titus,  the  Roman  general,  laid  siege  to 
the  city  and  utterly  destroyed  it.  And  His  prophecy,  "  Jeru- 
salem shall  be  trodden  down  of  the  Gentiles,"  was  and  is  still 
fulfilled. 

The  prophets  who  wrote  hundreds  of  years  before  Christ 
foretold  the  doom  of  their  beloved  city.  Jeremiah  had  said 
**  Zion  shall  be  plowed  as  a  field,  and  Jerusalem  shall  become 
heaps."  (Jeremiah  36:  18.)  The  name  of  the  Roman  who 
ran  his  plowshare  over  the  site  of  the  temple  is  preserved — 
Terentius  Rufus.  Julian  the  Apostate  tried  to  make  it  appear 
that  the  prophecy  of  Christ  was  false.  He  proclaimed  his 
purpose  to  restore  the  temple,  and  it  is  said  that  Jewish  women 
carried  away  in  their  aprons  the  dust  and  debris  from  the  place 
of  the  old  temple's  foundation,  weeping  tears  of  joy  as  they 
worked,  but  the  project  failed. 

While  ancient  Babylon  was  in  her  glory,  a  prophet  wrote 


io8       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

her  doom  in  these  words :  "  Babylon,  the  glory  of  king- 
doms, the  beauty  of  the  Chaldees'  excellency,  shall  be  as  when 
God  overthrew  Sodom  and  Gomorrah.  It  shall  never  be  in- 
habited, neither  shall  it  be  dwelt  in  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion, neither  shall  the  Arabian  pitch  tent  there,  neither  shall  the 
shepherds  make  their  fold  there;  but  wild  beasts  of  the  desert 
shall  lie  there."  (Isaiah  13:  19-21.)  "I  will  also  make  it  a 
possession  for  the  bittern  and  pools  of  water."  (Isaiah  14: 
23.)  We  have  but  to  turn  to  any  authentic  book  of  travels  to 
read  the  fulfillment  of  this  prophecy.  The  place  is  a  desola- 
tion, shunned  even  by  the  wandering  Bedouin.  Owls  hoot 
and  wild  beasts  prowl  among  its  ruins.  The  marshy  pools  of 
water  and  the  bittern  are  there. 

Nahum  prophesied  that  Nineveh,  then  in  her  glory,  should 
be  destroyed  by  water  and  fire.  History  confirms  it  by  stating 
that,  after  the  swollen  river  had  washed  away  a  part  of  the 
wall,  the  besiegers  rushed  through  the  breach  and  set  the  city 
on  fire. 

Tyre,  the  queen  of  the  seas,  the  Liverpool  of  ancient  times, 
had  her  doom  written  for  her,  while  there  was  no  sign  of  weak- 
ness or  decay !  God  said,  through  Ezekiel,  "  I  will  also 
scrape  her  dust  from  her,  and  make  her  like  the  top  of  a  rock." 
(Ezekiel  23:  4.) 

We  all  know  that  Alexander  the  Great  demolished  old  Tyre, 
and  with  its  ruins  built  a  causeway  half  a  mile  long  on  which 
his  soldiers  might  pass  to  new  Tyre  on  the  Island,  and  from 
that  day  to  this  her  site  has  been  like  the  top  of  a  rock.  Of 
Tyre,  Ezekiel  says  again,  "  Thou  shalt  be  a  place  to  spread  nets 
upon;  thou  shalt  be  built  no  more."  (Ezekiel  26:  4.)  That 
is  the  prophecy.  Here  is  the  history  written  by  the  infidel 
Volney :  '*  The  whole  village  of  Tyre  contains  only  fifty  or 
sixty  poor  families,  who  live  obscurely  on  the  produce  of  their 
little  ground  and  a  trifling  fishery."  Bruce,  the  traveler,  says 
that  Tyre  is  a  rock  whereon  fishers  dry  their  nets. 

Of  Egypt,  Ezekiel  writes,  "  It  shall  be  the  basest  of  king- 
doms."    (Ezekiel  29:  15.)     And  no  one  who  knows  Egypt 


Scripture  Inspiration  and  Authority         109 

to-day  will  be  inclined  to  deny  the  truth  of  that  prophecy.  It 
was  written  when  Egypt  was  at  the  climax  of  her  glory ;  as  if 
some  one  should  predict  of  England  to-day  that  she  is  destined 
to  become  the  basest  of  kingdoms. 

Of  the  Jews  it  was  prophesied  by  Moses  and  Ezekiel  that 
they  should  be  scattered  among  the  nations,  despised  and  per- 
secuted, and  yet  remain  distinct.  (Deut.  28:  64;  Ezekiel 
6:  8;  36:  19.)  We  need  not  be  told  that  this  prophecy  has 
been  fulfilled,  for  we  have  the  proof  of  it  every  day  before 
'js.  When  you  meet  a  Jew  you  know  him.  They  are  a  dis- 
tinct nation  without  a  nationality.  The  children  of  the  Ger- 
mans, English  and  French,  who  came  to  America  a  century 
ago  have  become  Americans.  No  one  can  tell  by  looking  into 
your  face  whether  your  great  grandfather  was  from  England, 
Germany,  or  France.  But  a  Jew  remains  a  Jew,  wherever  he 
inay  go,  and  whatever  language  he  may  speak.  There  is 
something  about  him  that  tells  you  he  is  a  Jew.  In  China  he 
has  tried  to  become  a  Chinaman  by  adopting  the  Chinese  cus- 
toms, but  the  Jew  with  a  pigtail  is  still  a  Jew.  No  one  would 
mistake  him  for  a  Chinaman.  Men  like  Baron  Hirsch  have 
advocated  their  mingling  with  the  Gentiles,  but  all  the  millions 
they  spend  to  bring  it  about  only  make  the  average  Jew  more 
determined  to  remain  distinct.  The  Jew  of  to-day  is  a  standing 
miracle  in  proof  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  and  the  divinity 
of  Christ.  Frederick  the  Great  asked  a  learned  man  to  give 
him  in  one  sentence  a  good  reason  in  favor  of  Christianity,  and 
his  reply  was,  "  The  Jews,  Your  Majesty."  No  candid  man, 
it  seems  to  me,  can  read  what  the  Bible  says  about  these 
people,  and  then  trace  its  fulfillment  in  their  history,  without 
being  convinced  that  a  foresight  more  than  human  wrote  the 
book,  and  a  Providence  more  than  human  has  preserved  them  a 
distinct  people.  Mr.  Spurgeon  says :  ''  There  was  a  man  in 
Scotland  who  had  a  piece  of  cloth  stolen.  The  thief  was  found 
with  the  piece  of  cloth  in  his  house.  The  maker  and  owner  of 
the  cloth  swore  to  it.  The  judge  at  the  trial  said  :  '  There  are 
hundreds  of  pieces  of  cloth  made  in  this  district  and  put  out  in 


1 1  o      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

the  fields  to  dry;  how  can  you  swear  to  it  as  your  piece?* 
'  Well,'  said  the  man,  '  I  can  swear  to  it  by  this :  I  have  a  num- 
ber of  tenter  hooks  upon  which  I  hang  my  cloth,  and  there  are 
holes  in  this  piece  which  are  exactly  the  same  distance  from  one 
another  as  my  tenter  hooks.  There  are  two  hooks  in  a  certain 
place  and  three  hooks  in  another,  close  together,  and  the  holes 
in  the  cloth  exactly  fit  to  these  tenter  hooks,  therefore  I  can 
swear  it  is  mine.'  So  we  also  can  swear  that  this  is  none  other 
than  the  Word  of  God,  because  we  find  that  every  historical 
statement  given  in  the  books  fits  in  the  tenter  hook  of  absolute 
fact,  which  even  profane  writers  do  not  venture  to  doubt." 

7.  The  power  of  the  Bible  confirms  the  proposition  that  it  is 
a  revelation  from  God.  It  is  the  living  Word.  God's  heart 
throbs  in  it,  and  his  arm  is  felt  in  every  chapter.  It  transforms 
character;  it  comforts  in  sorrow;  it  helps  men  to  live  and  to 
die.  It  makes  a  revolution  such  as  no  book  of  human  author- 
ship has  done.  Pastor  Hirsch  says  that  in  his  parish  visita- 
tion he  gave  a  Bible  to  a  seller  of  low  literature.  At  first  she 
refused  it,  and,  when  she  consented  to  accept  it  she  said,  ''  I 
will  sell  it."  "  All  right,"  replied  Mr.  Hirsch,  ''  but  read  it 
before  you  sell  it."  When  he  returned  to  that  book-store  sev- 
eral months  afterward,  he  found  that  all  the  low  literature  had 
been  cast  out.  The  woman,  who  had  never  read  the  Bible 
before,  was  so  impressed  with  its  truths,  and  her  character  was 
so  changed,  that  she  decided  to  run  only  a  first-class  book-store. 
The  Bible  thus  cleanses  and  keeps  clean  every  heart  and  busi- 
ness that  will  accept  its  teachings.  After  the  battle  of  Inker- 
man,  a  dead  soldier  was  found  with  his  bloody  finger  pressing 
upon  a  leaf  in  his  Bible.  As  they  lifted  his  body,  the  leaf  tore 
out,  and  one  of  his  comrades  read  aloud  the  words  upon  which 
his  finger  rested,  "  I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life !  "  While 
he  was  dying,  he  looked  through  these  words  of  God  into  the 
future,  bright  as  hope  in  Christ  could  make  it.  And  no  other 
book  could  give  such  an  experience  to  a  dying  soldier  on  the 
battle  field.  A  colporteur  handed  a  Bible  to  another  soldier 
of  the  Crimean  War  as  the  troops  were  leaving  Toulon.     He 


Scripture  Inspiration  and  Authority  1 1 1 

said,  "  I  will  light  my  pipe  with  it."  The  colporteur  regretted 
that  he  had  given  it  to  him,  but  prayed  that  God  would  some- 
how use  it  for  his  good.  Several  years  afterward  the  colporteur 
stopped  for  a  night  in  a  peasant's  home  in  France.  He  saw 
lying  on  the  table  a  well-worn,  soiled  Bible.  On  opening  it,  he 
noticed  the  front  leaves  were  torn  out.  The  mother  said  to 
him,  "  I  prize  that  book  very  highly.  My  boy  was  in  the  Cri- 
mean War  and  was  mortally  wounded  in  one  of  the  battles. 
It  was  this  book  that  led  him  to  Christ,  and  gave  him  a  hope  of 
heaven."  The  colporteur  recognized  the  book  as  the  same  one 
that  he  had  given  to  the  soldier  at  Toulon.  He  had  torn  out 
some  of  the  leaves  to  light  his  pipe  with,  yet,  when  the  hour  of 
suffering  arrived,  he  turned  to  the  book  which  he  had  despised 
for  light  and  comfort.  And  what  took  place  in  these  special 
cases  is  the  common  experience  of  every  Christian.  The  book 
is  the  voice  of  God,  life  and  light  and  joy  to  every  one  who 
believes  it.  It  brings  about  a  revolution  through  the  immedi- 
ate agency  of  God.  It  introduces  a  new  light,  which  grows 
and  develops  after  its  kind.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  evolv- 
ing flesh  into  spirit,  and  the  natural  into  the  spiritual  man. 
The  first  birth  is  not  the  germ  out  of  which  the  second  birth 
grows.  We  become  partakers  of  the  Divine  nature ;  it  is  God 
in  the  soul  making  all  things  new. 

The  attempt  to  make  men  Christians  by  a  process  of  educa- 
tion has  been  tried  with  dismal  failure.  Bishop  Colenso  took  a 
band  of  Zulu  youth  and  gave  them  a  good  education  in  Eng- 
land. After  they  had  advanced  in  their  studies,  he  suggested 
that  they  now  turn  their  attention  to  the  consideration  of  the 
claims  of  Christianity;  but,  in  the  words  of  Dr.  Gordon, 
"  They  kicked  up  their  heels  and  went  back  to  their  former 
heathen  practices."  The  good  Bishop  had  to  confess  that  his 
experiment  was  a  failure.  Hans  Egede  spent  fifteen  years  in 
Greenland  educating  the  people,  attempting,  as  he  said,  to  bring 
them  to  a  point  where  they  could  be  intelligent  Christians. 
With  a  broken  heart  he  preached  his  farewell  sermon  from  the 
text,  "  I  have  laboured  in  vain;    I  have  spent  my  strength  for 


112       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

naught."  Two  years  later,  John  Beck  succeeded  Egede  on  this 
field.  He  began  at  once  to  preach  Christ  crucified,  and  the  re- 
sult was  the  conversion  of  Karjanack,  who  became  a  flame  of 
evangelistic  zeal  amid  the  frozen  regions  of  Greenland.  Christ's 
death  and  resurrection  in  their  revolutionary  power  effected  in 
him  at  once  what  fifteen  years  of  training  could  not  accomplish 
in  others.  Robert  Moffat  was  told  that  if  he  went  to  preach 
to  Africaner,  the  cruel  chief  would  make  out  of  his  skull  a 
drinking  cup,  and  use  his  skin  for  a  drum  head.  But  Moffat, 
trusting  in  God,  went  to  Africaner  and  told  him  the  story  of 
the  suffering  Christ  and  the  risen  Lord.  The  result  was  that 
the  lion  became  the  lamb ;  the  cruel  chieftain  was  transformed 
into  an  earnest  Christian,  so  that  Moffat,  after  years  of  asso- 
ciation with  him,  wrote  this  testimonial  of  his  Christianity: 
"  I  do  not  once  remember  having  occasion  to  be  grieved  with 
him  or  to  complain  of  any  part  of  his  conduct/'  Nothing 
short  of  the  revolutionary  power  of  the  Gospel  can  explain 
the  experience  of  Paul,  Karjanack,  Africaner,  John  Newton, 
Jerry  McAuley  and  scores  of  others  whose  lives  of  wickedness 
have  been  won  immediately  and  directly  to  lives  of  righteous- 
ness. Such  has  been  the  effect  of  Biblical  preaching  in  many 
communities.  James  Calvert  tells  us  that  when  he  first  ar- 
rived at  the  Fiji  Islands,  the  first  thing  he  had  to  do  was  to 
gather  up  the  bones  and  pieces  of  flesh  which  had  been  left 
over  from  a  cannibal  feast  the  day  before.  Within  less  than 
half  a  century,  which  is  scarcely  less  than  a  speck  of  time  in 
the  circle  of  evolution,  these  men  once  cannibals,  were  sitting 
at  the  table  of  the  Lord.  The  death  of  Christ  revealed  in  the 
Bible  only,  symbolized  by  the  broken  bread  and  the  pouring 
wine,  had  wrought  this  revolution.  On  the  island  of  Anei- 
tyum  is  the  monument  of  John  Geddie,  bearing  this  inscription : 
"When  he  landed  here  in  1848,  there  were  no  Christians; 
when  he  left  here  in  1882,  there  were  no  heathen." 

Some  of  us  have  heard  from  the  lips  of  John  G.  Paton  how 
the  whole  Island  of  Aniwa  had  been  turned  to  Christ,  so  that 
among  all  its  inhabitants  there  is  not  a  single  heathen.     When 


Scripture  Inspiration  and  Authority         1 1  3 

Mr.  Darwin  visited  Terra  del  Fuego  in  1833,  he  wrote :  "  The 
Fuegians  are  in  a  more  miserable  state  of  barbarism  than  I  ever 
expected  to  have  seen  any  human  being."  He  thought  it 
would  be  impossible  to  civilize  them.  On  his  second  visit  in 
1869,  he  was  astonished  to  find  that  these  people,  whom  he  had 
regarded  as  below  the  domestic  animals,  had  been  transformed 
into  Christian  men  and  women.  In  his  astonishment  he  wrote : 
"  I  certainly  should  have  predicted  that  not  all  the  missionaries 
in  the  world  could  have  done  what  has  been  done.  It  is  won- 
derful, and  it  shames  me,  as  I  always  prophesied  failure.  It  is 
a  grand  success."  In  a  letter  to  the  London  Missionary  Soci- 
ety, enclosing  twenty-five  pounds  for  its  work,  Mr.  Darwin 
said :  **  I  shall  feel  proud  if  your  committee  shall  think  fit  to 
elect  me  an  honorary  member  of  your  society."  It  is  evident 
that  Darwin  perceived  that  a  revolutionary  rather  than  an  evo- 
lutionary force  had  been  at  work  on  Terra  del  Fuego. 

Such  is  the  Bible,  because  the  living  Christ  goes  with  it  and 
works  as  He  will.  As  I  went  through  Greenwood  Cemetery 
the  other  day,  I  saw  the  evidence  of  abundant  life  clothing  the 
hills  in  the  beauty  of  shrub  and  grass  and  flower,  but  under- 
neath the  granite  and  marble  shafts  there  was  no  appearance 
of  life.  Death  is  revolutionary.  It  soon  destroys  feature  and 
form,  and  reduces  our  friends  to  dust.  If  evolution  were  my 
hope,  I  should  stand  in  Greenwood  full  of  despair.  But  I  be- 
lieve in  the  God  of  revolution.  "  In  a  moment,  in  the  twink- 
ling of  an  eye,  at  the  last  trump,  the  dead  shall  be  raised." 
From  underneath  those  heavy  shafts  of  marble,  shall  come 
forth  bodies  of  our  loved  ones,  glorified  and  immortal: 
''  Wherefore,  comfort  one  another  with  these  words." 


Scripture  Inspiration  and  Authority 


Scripture  Inspiration  and  Authority 

BY 

The  Reverend  S.  D.  McCONNELL,  D.D. 

TEN  years  ago  Professor  Thayer  of  Harvard  spoke  thus  to 
his  hearers : 

"  But  inquirers,  you  tell  me,  demand  certainties.  They 
clamour  for  immediate  and  unequivocal  answers. 

"  Doubtless,  and  overlook  the  fact  that  divine  Wisdom  rare- 
ly vouchsafes  such.  If  God's  Book  had  had  the  average  man 
for  its  author,  no  doubt  it  would  have  abounded  in  direct  and 
categoric  replies  to  all  questions.  The  most  complicated  prob- 
lems of  time  and  eternity  would  be  solvable  by  a  process  as 
simple  as  the  rule  of  three!  But,  alas,  impatient  souls.  His 
people  do  not  get  into  the  promised  land  that  way.*' 

Nothing  is  more  pathetic  than  the  century  long  reluctance 
of  Christians  to  admit  the  elemental  truth  of  their  Master's 
teaching.  He  came  to  set  His  people  free, — ^but  they  shrink 
from  the  responsibility  of  freedom.  He  assured  them  that 
they  were  no  longer  servants  but  children, — whereupon  they 
long  for  the  minute  directions  which  a  master  gives  to  a  slave. 
In  a  word  they  have  persistently  sought  for  an  "  Authority." 
It  is  so  much  easier  to  live  by  rule  than  to  live  by  a  spirit.  At 
least  it  seems  to  be  easier.  In  point  of  fact  the  distinguishing 
feature  of  the  religion  of  Christ  is  that  it  vacates  all  external 
mastership,  turns  the  individual  soul  in  upon  itself  and  declares 
that  by  so  doing  it  will  find  itself  face  to  face  with  God.  It 
has  been  well  said  that  of  the  words  which  express  religion, 
neither  the  verbs  "  to  love,"  or  "  to  believe  "  has  any  impera- 
tive mood.  Christianity  is  loving  and  believing.  In  neither 
can  any  "  Authority  "  coerce.  One  loves  the  things  which  he 
himself  finds  lovable:  he  believes  the  things  which,  for  him, 
are  believable.  In  the  presence  of  an  Authority  he  may  be 
silent,  or  he  may  lie  to  the  authority,  or  he  may  lie  to  himself, 
but  the  absolute  situation  remains  unchanged. 

117 


1 1 8      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

There  have  been  three  conspicuous  pretenders  to  the  tyrant's 
throne, — the  Church,  the  Bible,  and  Reason.  To  speak  more 
accurately,  they  have  not  been  pretenders  so  much  as  they  have 
been  worthy  monarchs  whose  sceptres  have  been  thrust  into 
their  reluctant  hands  by  the  prophets  who  have  known  the 
Master's  wish  in  the  case,  but  have  yielded  to  the  people's  cry, 
"  Nay,  but  we  will  have  a  King  over  us."  Each  of  these  has 
in  turn  played  the  tyrant,  but  it  has  always  been  because  the 
people  would  have  it  so.  Dr.  Martineau  has  championed  the 
cause  of  Reason  as  the  legitimate  occupant  of  the  throne  over 
against  the  claims  of  the  Church  and  the  Bible.  Cardinal 
Newman  has  fought  for  the  authority  of  the  Church.  A  hun- 
dred Protestant  champions  have  maintained  the  Westminster 
dictum  that  "  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  are 
the  only  rule  of  faith  and  practice.'*  With  all  reverence  I  be- 
lieve and  say  that  the  Master  would  have  cried  "  a  plague  on 
all  your  houses " !  I  would  not  be  misunderstood.  The 
Church,  the  Bible,  and  Reason  all  have  their  necessary  place 
and  function  in  the  economy  of  Christ's  religion.  But  that 
function  is  not  properly  stated  by  the  word  ''  authority."  Au- 
thorities they  are  not.  Guides,  interpreters,  if  you  will,  but 
masters,  no.  Four  centuries  ago  a  large  and  influential  por- 
tion of  Christendom  revolted  against  the  tyranny  of  the 
Church.  They  did  not  thereby  cease  to  be  Christians,  nor  did 
they  cease  to  be  Churchmen.  They  simply  asserted  that  they 
who  had  been  made  free  men  in  Jesus  Christ  were  not  to  be 
brought  into  bondage  by  any  spiritual  master.  A  large  por- 
tion of  the  Christian  world  believed  then  and  believes  yet  that 
this  revolt  was  a  rebellion  against  God.  They  cannot  think 
of  it  as  a  Reformation.  They  see  in  it  a  form  of  that  same 
lawlessness  which  caused  Satan  to  be  cast  out  of  heaven.  This 
is  fundamentally  the  question  at  issue  between  Protestantism 
and  Papalism.  Strictly  speaking  Rome  has  only  one  doctrine, 
that  is,  submit  yourself  to  authority.  Protestantism  is  essen- 
tially the  assertion  that  the  individual  Christian  is  a  friend  of 
the  Master,  and  no  longer  a  servant  who  knoweth  not  what  the 


Scripture  Inspiration  and  Authority  1 1 9 

Master  doeth.  This  position  was  consistently  and  valiantly 
maintained  by  the  early  reformers.  So  far  as  obedience  to  the 
Church  is  concerned  they  have  not  yielded.  Obedience  to  the 
Church's  commands,  as  commands,  cannot  to-day  be  secured 
in  any  portion  of  Protestantism.  It  is  every  year  becoming 
more  difficult  to  secure  by  Rome. 

But  the  burden  of  freedom  is  very  onerous.  Before  the 
second  generation  of  the  Reformers  had  passed  away  a  move- 
ment had  set  in  which  had  for  its  purpose  to  set  the  Bible  upon 
the  same  throne  of  authority  from  which  the  Church  had  been 
rudely  thrust.  It  was  less  fitted  for  that  office  than  the  Church 
had  been,  nor  had  it  heretofore  been  regarded  in  that  aspect  by 
Catholic  tradition.  But  the  people  had  begun  once  more  to 
cry  "  nay,  but  we  will  have  a  King  over  us."  It  was  then  that 
the  doctrine  of  '*  Inspiration ''  began  to  be  exploited.  The 
Bible  was  first  enthroned  as  authority,  and  thereupon  its  inspi- 
ration was  urged  to  establish  its  legitimacy.  The  whole  devel- 
opment of  the  dogma  lies  within  the  seventeenth  and  the  first 
half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  as  any  one  who  will  take  the 
trouble  may  read.  During  that  time  the  Literae  Scriptae  were 
confirmed  in  a  position  which  they  have  held  until  our  own 
time.  The  Bible  came  to  be  called  the  "  Word  of  God."  It 
became  a  palladium  and  a  charm.  The  theologian  thought  of 
it  as  a  complete  and  final  transcript  of  God's  law  and  purpose. 
The  common  people  adored  it  as  a  fetich.  It  came  to  be  kissed 
in  the  court-room  as  the  sacred  thing  which  alone  could  invoke 
truth.  It  was  appealed  to  as  not  only  the  ultimate  but  the  im- 
mediate arbiter  in  every  question  of  faith  and  conduct.  With- 
out its  presence  in  its  entirety  it  was  believed  that  no  people 
could  know  God.  By  its  distribution  it  was  believed  that  the 
Gospel  could  be  spread  abroad,  whose  Founder  had  decreed 
that  it  should  be  propagated  by  the  contact  of  living  man  with 
living  man.  It  came  to  hold  the  place  in  Protestantism  which 
the  Koran  holds  in  Islam.  And  all  this  without  its  own  con- 
sent, and  even  against  its  plain  protest. 

Just  now  a  large  portion  of  the  Protestant  world  is  disturbed 


1 20      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

by  what  it  thinks  to  be  a  breaking  away  from  the  authority  of 
the  Bible.  Is  the  apprehension  justified?  What  has  caused 
the  fear?  What  will  be  the  outcome  of  the  movement?  Of 
the  ultimate  issue  there  can  be  little  question.  The  servant 
will  be  handed  down  from  the  seat  of  the  King.  The  Scrip- 
tures of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  are  the  product  of  that 
long  and  wide  movement  toward  God  at  the  centre  of  which 
stands  "  God  manifest  in  the  flesh."  The  Church  is  that  great 
company  of  faithful  people,  from  every  age  and  every  clime, 
organized  and  unorganized,  conscious  and  unconscious,  who 
by  thought,  word  and  deed  contributed  to  the  bringing  in  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  The  Bible  is  the  literature  of  a  move- 
ment. The  movement  produced  the  literature  and  not  con- 
versely. The  movement  is  superior  to  the  literature  and  con- 
trols it.  The  literature  gains  its  peculiar  character  from  the 
unique  quality  of  the  movement.  The  movement  is  the  mas- 
ter and  the  Book  is  the  servant.  Within  a  certain  very  cir- 
cumscribed area  inside  the  Church,  and  within  about  three  cen- 
turies of  time,  the  servant  has  been  unwisely  elevated  into  a 
position  to  which  it  never  claimed  title.  This  action  has  been 
confined  solely  to  a  portion  of  Great  Britain  and  to  Protestant- 
ism within  the  United  States.  The  task  now  is  to  remove  the 
Bible  from  the  unwarranted  place  assigned  to  it,  and  to  do  this 
in  such  manner  that  it  will  not  suffer  diminution  of  the  honour 
which  belongs  to  it  of  right  and  in  its  own  place.  But  the  task 
must  be  done. 

Two  classes  of  people  within  the  nominal  frontier  of  Protes- 
tantism fiercely  oppose  the  doing  of  it.  There  are,  first,  the 
extreme  Protestants  whose  whole  fabric  of  religious  thought 
is  so  based  upon  the  idea  of  an  infallible  written  revelation  that 
they  cannot  conceive  the  fabric  standing  when  the  foundation 
should  be  withdrawn.  The  other  is  a  comparatively  small 
group  of  Churchmen  who  are  so  enamored  of  the  very  prin- 
ciple of  Authority  in  Religion  that  they  cannot  abide  question 
of  any  authority,  even  though  it  be  one  of  which  they  them- 
selves take  small  heed.    These  two  join  their  voices  in  an  outcry 


Scripture  Inspiration  and  Authority  121 

against  the  same  kind  of  study  of  Scripture,  which  has  been 
freely  allowed  always  and  everywhere  within  the  universal 
Church,  with  the  exception  of  the  limited  time  and  area  above 
mentioned.  But  the  majority  is  against  them.  All  Catholic 
tradition  is  against  them.  The  Bible  itself  refuses  to  side  with 
them.    The  result  is  foregone. 

But  what  then  becomes  of  the  "  Doctrine  of  Inspiration  "  ? 

To  this  I  reply,  the  Church  Catholic  has  no  doctrine  of  In- 
spiration. It  has  the  fact.  But  it  has  never  defined  the  fact  or 
elevated  it  into  a  dogma.  Only  within  the  limited  time  and 
area  before  mentioned  has  this  been  done.  Hence  it  happens 
that  only  within  that  area  is  the  present  perplexity  felt.  The 
Eastern  Church  cannot  comprehend  the  difficulty.  The  Roman 
Church  is  untouched  by  it.  The  Anglican  Church  is  only 
disturbed  by  it  to  the  extent  to  which  she  has  informally  com- 
mitted herself  to  a  Protestant  dogma.  Officially  she  does  not 
recognize  any  dogma  of  Inspiration.  She  is  content  with 
stating  what  books  are  included  within  the  sacred  writings, 
and  with  declaring  that  no  belief  is  to  be  exacted  as  a  con- 
dition of  membership  in  the  Church  which  is  not  recognized 
in  them. 

That  the  threescore  little  booklets  bound  up  together  in  our 
Bible  possesses  a  unique  quality  has  always  been  recognized 
by  those  who  were  qualified  to  discern  that  quality.  It  is  be- 
cause they  possessed  this  quality  that  they  have  survived  while 
their  contemporary  writings  have  perished.  But  the  name  by 
which  this  quality  shall  be  called  is  quite  another  matter. 
The  word  "  Inspiration  '*  suited  the  fact  well  enough  so  long  as 
the  word  retained  its  original  indefiniteness  of  connotation. 
It  is  a  serious  question  now,  whether  it  can  be  happily  em- 
ployed in  the  area  where  it  has  been  so  long  misemployed.  It 
misleads.  By  ancient  and  universal  usage  ''  inspiration  "  was 
credited  to  certain  men  who  spoke  or  wrote.  By  local  and 
modern  usage  inspiration  is  attached  not  to  the  writers  but 
to  the  Book.  A  legitimate  metonymy  has  created  an  illegiti- 
mate dogma.     That  certain  men  of  old  spake  as  they  were 


122      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost  is  beyond  question.  But  the  impulse 
of  the  Spirit  of  Holiness  is  a  moral  and  not  an  intellectual 
one.  It  does  not  guarantee  accuracy,  but  it  is  recognized  by 
the  moral  sense  of  the  hearer.  This  is  why  the  words  of  some 
men  have  survived  and  are  a  living  force  in  the  moral  move- 
ment of  the  race.    The  men  were  inspired. 

But  what  authority  shall  decide  which  men  have  been  in- 
spired, and  what  writings  possess  the  unique  quality  due 
thereto?  I  reply,  no  external  decision  can  determine.  No 
decree,  no  counsel,  no  obiter  dicta  can  attach  the  label  "  in- 
spired "  to  any  book  with  the  certainty  that  it  will  adhere.  The 
appeal  is  to  the  Christian  consciousness.  When  that  has 
spoken  a  general  council  can  but  register  its  decree.  It  may 
be  that  in  certain  instances  its  voice  has  not  been  waited  for,  or 
that  it  has  been  constrained  by  ecclesiastical  pressure,  or  that 
a  judgment  has  been  made  by  a  passing  authority  against  its 
silent  protest.  No  doubt.  But  the  simple  fact  that  a  literature 
fragmentary,  incomplete,  undistinguished  by  literary  skill  or 
intellectual  brilliancy  has  remained  through  the  centuries  a 
constant,  living  stimulus  and  corrective  to  the  world's  con- 
science establishes  its  origin  from  the  Spirit  of  Holiness.  It 
is  true  that  the  Church  lived  for  several  centuries  without  it, 
that  it  would  not  perish  were  the  Bible  to  be  lost.  This  is  but 
to  say  that  salvation  is  not  made  contingent  upon  the  ability 
to  read  and  write.  But  when  all  is  said,  the  fact  still  remains 
that  the  writings  which  we  call  sacred  are  sacred.  Not  because 
they  burst  into  the  world  through  any  earthquake  of  divine 
visitation,  not  because  they  were  sent  forth  by  any  mighty 
blast  of  ecclesiastical  wind,  but  because  in  them  speaks  the  still, 
small  voice,  at  the  sound  of  which  every  true  prophet  and  man 
of  God  covers  his  face.  What  authority  they  possess  rests 
upon  this  fact.  The  capacity  to  inspire  is  the  only  and  the  suf- 
ficient evidence  of  inspiration. 

But  this  quality  which  they  possess  they  possess  in  unequal 
degree.  Whether  or  not  any  may  perchance  be  included  in  the 
Canon  which  possess  it  not  at  all,  only  time  can  show.     But 


Scripture  Inspiration  and  Authority  123 

this  would  require  long  time.  Even  a  possession  of  twenty 
centuries'  tenure  does  not  establish  an  indefeasible  title.  And 
a  general  council  in  the  thirtieth  century  would  have  just  the 
same  power  to  pronounce  the  Christian  judgment  in  the  prem- 
ises, and  if  need  be  to  reverse  a  previous  judgment  that  a 
council  of  the  fifth  century  had  to  reverse  one  of  the  third. 
There  is  no  prescriptive  right  in  the  Kingdom  of  Christ. 

If  it  be  objected  that  this  way  of  thinking  vacates  the  Holy 
Scriptures  of  all  divine  authority,  two  answers  are  forth- 
coming. The  first  is  that  this  is  the  way  in  which  the  Church 
throughout  all  the  centuries  and  to-day  has  and  does  regard 
them.  The  only  exception  in  time  is  the  three  centuries  last 
past,  and  in  space  is  a  portion  of  the  Protestant  world  of  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States.  The  other  answer  is,  it  does 
vacate  them  of  all  authority  except  this  intrinsic  power  to  in- 
spire. It  rests  content  with  the  doctrine  of  the  Apostle  that 
"  Every  God-breathed  writing  is  profitable  for  teaching,  re- 
proof, correction  and  instruction  in  righteousness." 

In  righteousness:  not  in  science,  not  in  history,  not  in 
geography  or  ethnology.  To  this,  which  is  essentially  the 
Catholic  doctrine  of  Holy  Scripture,  what  can  criticism  or 
scholarship  do  ?  What  if  it  should  appear  that  the  human  race 
began  ages  before  Eden  or  that  Moses  did  not  write  the 
Pentateuch  or  that  there  were  two  Isaiahs,  or  that  the  Gospel 
which  goes  by  his  name  was  not  written  by  the  beloved  dis- 
ciple? Proof  of  these  things  would  not  touch  the  intrinsic 
quality  by  which  the  books  live,  any  more  than  would  the  dis- 
covery that  the  alabaster  box  had  been  carved  at  Babylon  and 
not  in  Jerusalem  affect  the  fragrance  of  the  precious  nard  con- 
tained therein. 

We  have  come  to  a  time  in  the  history  of  the  Christian  world 
when  nothing  but  realities  will  be  tolerated.  Only  those  things 
can  be  accepted  as  sacred  which  awake  the  sense  of  reverence. 
Only  those  things  are  inspired  which  can  themselves  inspire. 
There  need  be  no  fear  to  submit  the  Christian  Scriptures  to  this 
test,  nor  need  any  one  futilly  imagine  that  they  can  secure 
them  exemption  from  the  test. 


The  Old  Testament  in  the  Light  of  Higher 

Criticism 


The  Old  Testament  in  the  Light  of 
Higher  Criticism 

BY 

The  Reverend  Professor  HENRY  PRESERVED  SMITH,  D.D. 

THE  nineteenth  century  has  seen  a  thorough  revision  of  our 
historical  knowledge.  This  revision  has  begun  with  the 
study  of  ancient  documents,  and  the  science  which  concerns 
these  documents — criticism  we  call  it — has  made  very  distinct 
advance  during  the  hundred  years.  Historical  criticism  has 
developed  along  two  lines;  first,  the  settlement  of  the  text  of 
ancient  documents  on  the  basis  of  manuscript  evidence.  This 
is  textual  criticism  sometimes  called  the  lower  criticism  be- 
cause it  comes  at  the  basis  of  all  historical  study.  In  distinc- 
tion from  this,  the  second  branch  (or  higher  criticism)  con- 
cerns itself  with  the  internal  characteristics  of  a  document 
after  the  text  is  settled.  It  asks  about  date,  authorship,  mode 
of  composition. 

When  it  was  discovered  that  all  historical  knowledge  is  ac- 
quired by  a  critical  process  it  became  inevitable  that  the  books 
of  the  Old  Testament  should  be  subjected  to  the  same  process. 
Both  in  textual  criticism  and  in  the  higher  branch  there  was 
evidently  much  to  do.  It  is  perhaps  a  misfortune  that  the 
textual  criticism  could  not  have  been  finished  first,  and  so 
have  prepared  the  way  for  the  higher  criticism.  But  one 
science  does  not  wait  for  another — all  the  sciences  are  ad- 
vanced simultaneously  by  a  multitude  of  workers. 

It  would  not  be  accurate  to  say  that  the  whole  critical  study 
of  the  Old  Testament  is  bounded  by  the  limits  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  Slight  beginnings  of  it  are  found  as  far  back 
as  the  twelfth  century  in  one  or  two  Jewish  scholars.  In  the 
period  of  the  Reformation  also  we  find  a  somewhat  freer  atti- 
tude towards  tradition  than  had  existed  before.  Luther  is  the 
most  conspicuous  example,  and  his  contemporary  Carlstadt 

127 


128      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

raised  some  of  the  questions  which  have  been  widely  discussed 
in  our  own  day.  As  the  Protestant  theologians  became  more 
scholastic  in  their  attitude,  there  was  a  reaction  towards  tra- 
dition, and  the  critical  inquiries  came  to  a  stop. 

The  Jewish  philosopher  Spinoza  may  be  called  the  first 
genuine  Biblical  critic.  His  attempts  at  a  systematic  examina- 
tion of  the  Old  Testament  met  with  no  favour  among  his  con- 
temporaries. With  him  should  be  mentioned  Richard  Simon, 
a  Roman  Catholic — like  Spinoza  he  wrote  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  In  1773,  an  epoch  is  marked  by  the 
publication  of  Astruc*s  Conjectures.  This  work  gave  a  clue 
which  was  extraordinarily  effective,  in  that  it  pointed  out  the 
different  use  of  the  names  for  God  in  the  different  parts  of  the 
Book  of  Genesis.  The  clue  was  followed  up  by  Eichhorn,  the 
first  edition  of  whose  Einleitung  was  published  in  1780. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  paper  to  give  a  history  of  the 
higher  criticism.  The  above  names  are  adduced  to  show  that 
critical  science  has  been  a  plant  of  slow  growth,  and  that  its 
outlines  were  sketched  before  the  century  dawned.  It  remains 
to  note  that  those  outlines  were  traced  again  with  a  firmer  hand, 
and  filled  in  with  the  greatest  conceivable  fulness  of  'detail 
during  this  century.  Not  only  this — the  new  science  has  es- 
tablished itself  with  growing  firmness,  and  its  results  are  ac- 
cepted with  increasing  unanimity. 

There  are  no  doubt  a  great  many  people  still  to  whom  the 
formula:  The  Bible  is  the  word  of  God  precludes  critical  in- 
vestigation. But  the  number  of  such  is  diminishing,  while 
the  number  of  sincere  Christian  believers  who  accept  the  main 
results  of  critical  inquiry  increases  daily. 

The  first  stage  of  Biblical  criticism  was  naturally  concerned 
with  the  Pentateuch.  Over  the  question  of  its  genuineness  or 
authenticity  a  long  and  pertinacious  battle  was  fought.  It  is 
a  misfortune  that  the  question  was  put  in  the  form  in  which 
it  was  actually  presented.  The  Pentateuch  in  its  entirety  does 
not  claim  to  be  a  work  of  Moses  or  of  any  other  individual 
author.    There  can  therefore  be  no  question  of  genuineness  to 


Old  Testament  in  Light  of  Higher  Criticism    129 

discuss.  It  is  unfortunate  also  that  the  Pentateuch  should  be 
isolated  from  the  other  historical  books.  This  isolation  is  a  part 
of  our  inheritance  from  the  Jews.  To  them  the  Torah,  or  Law, 
has  a  very  special  interest  and  importance.  These  five  books 
regulate  the  life  of  the  Jew,  and  as  the  result  they  were  early 
treated  as  a  code  apart.  But  from  a  literary  point  of  view  they 
belong  with  the  other  books.  There  is  no  break  between  them 
and  what  follows.  The  inquiry  should  have  started  with  the 
whole  historical  narrative  stretching  from  Genesis  to  2  Kings. 
When  this  is  clearly  seen,  the  way  is  open  for  some  very  simple 
truths.  The  first  of  these  is  that  the  whole  group  of  books  we 
are  considering  took  their  present  shape  not  earlier  than  the 
Exile.  Their  final  redaction  may  be  later,  but  it  cannot  be 
earlier,  because  one  of  the  authors  knew  of  the  release  of 
Jehoiachin  from  the  Babylonian  prison  (2  Kings  25:27). 
This  took  place  in  the  year  561  B.  C,  and  our  inquiry  should 
note  the  fact. 

The  whole  debate  about  the  Pentateuch  has  been  bringing  out 
a  recognition  of  the  fact  just  considered.  It  has  also  elaborated 
the  theory  which  next  claims  our  attention — the  theory  that 
the  method  of  Hebrew  historical  writing  is  the  method  of 
compilation.  This  method  is  seen  to  lie  on  the  surface  when 
once  it  is  pointed  out.  The  difificulty  of  getting  it  acknowledged 
in  the  Pentateuch  arose  from  the  isolation  of  those  books.  The 
Biblical  narrative  from  the  Creation  to  the  Exile  is  the  result  of 
a  succession  of  compilations.  The  earliest  prose  author  intro- 
duced into  his  work  poems,  like  the  song  of  Deborah,  which 
were  already  in  existence.  The  next  in  order  of  time  enriched 
his  history  with  a  code  of  laws  (the  Book  of  the  Covenant,  Ex. 
20:  22-23  •  19)  which  had  been  written  down  by  some  one  else. 
The  obscurities  in  the  account  of  Solomon's  reign  arise  from 
the  fact  that  the  author  put  together  sections  from  two  early 
histories.  The  first  great  gain  from  the  critical  study  of  the 
century  consists  in  insight  into  the  method  of  Hebrew  his- 
torical composition. 

On  the  basis  thus  attained  we  may  understand  the  detailed 


130      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

documentary  hypothesis,  which  has  been  worked  out  by  long 
and  patient  inquiry.  This  hypothesis  does  indeed  distinguish 
two  groups  in  the  historical  books ;  it  marks  off  the  Hexateuch 
(the  first  six  books)  because  this  section  of  the  narrative  shows 
sources  of  its  own.  These  sources  are  four  in  number.  The 
oldest  one  is  the  work  of  an  author  usually  called  the  Yahwist, 
because  he  generally  uses  the  divine  name  Yahwist  (Jehovah). 
His  book  was  a  collection  of  traditions  concerning  the  Creation, 
the  Flood,  the  Patriarchs  and  the  Exodus.  He  is  a  brilliant  and 
vivid  narrator.  To  him  we  owe  the  account  of  the  Garden  of 
Eden,  and  the  Fall  of  Man.  He  may  be  dated  somewhere  about 
850  B.  C.  Next  we  have  a  kindred  spirit  who  treated  a  part  of 
the  same  material  from  a  somewhat  different  point  of  view. 
He  began  with  Abraham  (instead  of  the  Creation)  and  used 
the  name  Elohim  (God)  instead  of  the  proper  name  Yahweh. 
Hence  he  is  called  the  Elohist  (E).  He  incorporated  in  his 
work  a  brief  legal  compendium  called  the  Book  of  the  Cove- 
nant— referred  to  above.  His  work  was  supplemented  by 
other  writers  of  the  same  school,  reaching  its  final  stage  (say) 
700  B.  C. 

These  two  books  (at  first  circulated  separately)  were  com- 
bined in  the  manner  in  which  the  four  Gospels  are  sometimes 
worked  into  a  continuous  narrative.  They  were  already  thus 
combined  before  the  incorporation  with  them  of  the  Book  of 
Deuteronomy.  This  book  is  the  one  which  made  such  a  sen- 
sation in  the  reign  of  Josiah.  As  we  read  in  2  Kings  22  the 
priest  Hilkiah  found  in  the  Temple  a  book  called  the  Book  of 
Instruction.  Its  threats  of  God's  wrath  were  so  severe  and  its 
requirements  so  stringent  that  the  King  was  much  moved,  and 
at  once  took  measures  to  secure  its  observance.  The  way  in 
which  it  is  described,  gives  us  reason  to  think  that  this  book 
is  some  part  of  our  Deuteronomy.  When  once  in  circulation 
it  was  supplemented  and  expanded,  and  at  last  it  found  its 
appropriate  setting  by  being  inserted  into  the  history  of  /.  E. 

Deuteronomy  is  significant  in  view  of  its  use  of  the  name  of 


Old  Testament  in  Light  of  Higher  Criticism     131 

I  / 
Moses.  As  a  literary  composition  it  cannot  be  much  older 
than  the  date  at  which  it  was  discovered  in  the  Temple  (623 
B.  C.)-  It  purports  however  to  produce  speeches  made  by 
Moses  who  lived  at  least  six  hundred  years  earlier.  No  doubt 
the  author  made  use  of  Mosaic  traditions,  but  the  only  ex- 
planation which  can  be  offered  for  his  clothing  them  in  the  form 
in  which  we  read  them  is  that  he  boldly  made  use  of  fiction — a 
device  which  has  been  frequently  employed  in  other  times,  both 
among  the  Hebrews  and  among  Gentiles.  In  fact  the  book 
must  be  judged  like  the  speeches  so  often  put  into  the  mouth 
of  the  hero  by  an  ancient  historian. 

Deuteronomy  is  perhaps  the  most  influential  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament books.  It  made  a  profound  impression  at  the  time  of 
its  discovery,  and  that  impression  was  prolonged  by  the  cove- 
nant into  which  the  people  entered  to  observe  it.  Especially 
after  its  threats  were  fulfilled  by  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
it  became  an  authority  for  the  faithful  remnant.  It  was  the 
first  of  the  Old  Testament  books  to  become  canonical  in  the  full 
sense  of  the  word.  It  became  moreover  the  basis  on  which  the 
earlier  history  of  the  nation  was  judged  and  partly  rewritten. 

The  Exile  gave  opportunity  for  reflection.  In  the  prophet 
Ezekiel  we  see  the  direction  which  the  thought  of  the  faithful 
took.  It  advanced  along  the  path  laid  out  by  Deuteronomy. 
This  book  had  aimed  to  give  the  people  a  rule  of  life  more  com- 
plete than  they  had  before  possessed.  But  a  code  of  rules  is 
capable  of  indefinite  expansion.  'After  the  return  to  Jerusalem 
a  priestly  author  collected  all  the  legal  traditions  within  his 
reach,  and  published  them  as  the  Law  of  Moses.  He  prefaced 
them  with  a  brief  historical  sketch  mainly  made  of  genealogies. 
Thus  came  into  being  the  Priest-code,  the  latest  of  the  elements 
in  the  Hexateuch.  A  considerable  part  of  the  debate  on  Old 
Testament  criticism  has  raged  around  the  question  of  the  com- 
parative age  of  the  Priest-code  and  the  other  documents.  This 
document,  from  its  formal  and  schematic  character,  readily 
furnished  the  compiler  with  a  framework  into  which  he  fitted 


132       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

the  other  narratives.  This  gave  the  impression  that  it  was  the 
oldest  document  to  which  the  others  have  been  added  as  sup- 
plements. It  was  also  thought  that  the  interest  in  genealogical 
data  was  older  than  the  interest  in  the  narratives  of  events. 
But  the  reverse  has  been  discovered  to  be  the  case.  One  of 
the  latest  of  the  Old  Testament  books  is  Chronicles;  yet  it  is 
largely  made  up  of  genealogical  tables.  One  of  the  permanent 
results  of  this  century's  study  is  the  decision  that  the  Priestly 
document  is  the  youngest  portion  of  the  Hexateuch.  This 
book  seems  to  be  the  one  promulgated  by  Ezra  (B.  C.  444) 
and  of  course  its  incorporation  in  the  Hexateuch  is  still  later. 

These  sources  of  the  Hexateuch  furnish  also  a  part  of  the 
material  for  the  other  historical  books  (Judges,  Samuel  and 
Kings).  To  what  extent  this  is  the  case  is  still  under  debate. 
Besides  them  we  find  evidence  of  a  life  of  David,  a  life  of 
Solomon,  and  a  life  of  Elijah,  large  sections  of  which  are  pre- 
served for  us  in  Samuel  and  Kings.  It  is  instructive  to  compare 
with  these  the  Books  of  Chronicles.  The  latter  cover  precisely 
the  same  period  as  the  older  series.  They  are  made  up  by  com- 
pilation, as  we  see  on  comparing  them  with  the  others.  The  au- 
thor of  Chronicles  took  whole  sections  from  the  earlier  history, 
incorporating  them  into  his  work  without  alteration.  With 
them  he  combined  other  sections  of  a  very  different  tenor.  The 
result  is  a  historical  picture  which  it  is  impossible  to  harmonize 
with  the  earlier  narrative.  All  that  the  critics  have  claimed 
concerning  the  composition  of  the  Pentateuch  is  so  plainly  il- 
lustrated in  Chronicles  that  no  one  can  deny  the  possibility  of 
such  a  process.  It  is  the  merit  of  present  Biblical  study  that 
it  recognizes  these  analogies,  and  also  that  it  frankly  recog- 
nizes the  discrepancies  between  the  two  streams  of  Hebrew 
narrative. 

Turning  now  to  the  group  of  books  called  the  Prophets 
(but  excluding  Daniel),  we  easily  discover  that  the  group  is  an 
aggregation  of  fragments.  The  Book  of  Ezekiel  indeed  is  a 
literary  unit.  The  prophet  Ezekiel  himself  seems  to  have  been 
a  writer  rather  than  an  orator,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt 


Old  Testament  in  Light  of  Higher  Criticism     133 

that  he  himself  put  his  book  into  its  present  shape.*  This 
certainly  is  of  the  greatest  importance,  for  we  are  able  to  fix 
with  accuracy  the  date  of  composition.  The  book  is  important 
as  showing  how  the  Jews  in  Exile  were  preparing  the  way  for 
the  later  enforcement  of  the  legalistic  system  of  Ezra.  Full 
appreciation  of  this  fact  has  come  only  in  the  last  quarter  of 
this  century,  in  the  discussions  on  the  age  of  the  priestly  legis- 
lation. 

When  we  pass  to  the  Book  of  Jeremiah  we  find  ourselves 
less  certain.  A  considerable  part  of  what  is  there  contained  is 
Jeremiah's  preaching,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the  ac- 
curacy of  what  the  editor  has  written  about  the  prophet's  ex- 
perience. But  some  of  the  prophecies  bear  a  later  date.  If 
Baruch  (as  seems  probable)  put  the  original  book  into  circula- 
tion, later  editors  have  freely  supplemented  it  with  fragments 
from  other  sources.  The  most  of  the  prophecies  against  for- 
eign nations  belong  in  the  supplement.  Here  we  find  true  what 
has  so  often  been  shown — that  Hebrew  literature  is  the  result 
of  a  complicated  process. 

This  is  more  conspicuously  true  of  the  book  which  bears  the 
name  of  Isaiah.  The  book  falls  into  two  halves  at  once  when  we 
look  at  it.  Isaiah  the  contemporary  of  Hezekiah  is  the  author 
of  a  considerable  part  of  the  first  half.  But  this  half  (Chapters 
1-39),  is  composite  and  contains  prophecies  of  different  dates. 
The  second  half  (Chapters  40-66)  bears  unmistakable  marks 
of  the  Exile.  But  it  also  is  composite,  and  the  tendency  is  at 
present  to  find  three  different  hands  in  the  various  sections  of 
the  Book.  The  debate  is  not  yet  closed.  But  substantial 
unanimity  exists  in  recognizing  the  composite  nature  of  both 
halves,  and  in  ascribing  portions  of  the  first  half  as  well  as  the 
greater  part  of  the  second  half  to  exilic  authors. 

Among  the  books  not  yet  considered,  the  Psalter  easily  holds 
the  first  place.     Concerning  this  collection  of  hymns  the  cen- 

*Much  work  has  been  done  recently  on  the  text  of  Ezekiel,  which  has 
been  very  badly  preserved  in  the  authorized  Hebrew  copies.  But  the  ac- 
count of  textual  criticism  does  not  belong  in  the  present  paper. 


1 34      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

tury  shows  a  remarkable  change  of  front.  That  the  poems  are 
not  all  by  David  has  probably  always  been  recognized,  for  the 
Hebrew  titles  ascribe  some  of  them  to  other  authors.  But  the 
progress  of  inquiry  during  the  last  fifty  years  has  taken  from 
David  the  greater  part  of  those  formerly  accepted  as  his.  At 
the  present  time  it  is  a  question  whether  even  one  can  be 
claimed  by  him,  and  an  increasing  number  of  scholars  find 
themselves  unable  to  date  any  large  number  of  the  Psalms  be- 
fore the  Exile.  It  is  natural  to  suppose  that  the  ripest  fruits  of 
the  Old  Testament  Piety  were  produced  in  the  latest  period  of 
Hebrew  history.  The  four  hundred  years  of  silence  that  were 
assumed  between  Ezra  and  John  the  Baptist  no  longer  puzzle 
the  investigator,  and  it  is  a  distinct  gain  to  find  the  heroic  age 
of  the  Maccabees  expressing  itself  in  the  prayers  and  praises 
of  the  Psalter. 

In  like  manner  the  progress  of  inquiry  has  brought  down  the 
Book  of  Proverbs  to  a  comparatively  late  date.  This  is  a  con- 
spicuous example  of  the  overthrow  of  tradition  which  yet 
leaves  the  value  of  the  book  unimpaired.  What  value  could 
be  added  to  the  aphorisms  of  this  book  by  having  them  proceed 
from  the  luxurious  and  oppressive  despot  whose  name  they 
bear?  No  satisfactory  answer  can  be  given  to  this  question. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  should  despair  of  the  power  of  prac- 
tical religion  if  after  giving  any  man  wisdom  to  utter  so  many 
excellent  maxims  of  life  and  conduct,  it  should  produce  a 
life  such  as  was  led  by  Solomon.  Ecclesiastes  has  long  been 
recognized  to  be  one  of  the  latest  Biblical  books.  It  cannot 
be  put  very  far  away  from  Proverbs. 

The  most  serious  problems  (for  the  defender  of  the  older 
view  of  the  Bible)  are  propounded  by  the  Book  of  Daniel. 
The  present  century  has  carefully  studied  a  variety  of  similar 
books  which  circulated  about  the  beginning  of  our  era.  Ac- 
quaintance with  them  enables  us  to  put  the  Book  of  Daniel  in 
the  same  class.  An  apocalypse  is  a  book  which  clothes  history 
in  the  garb  of  prophecy  up  to  a  certain  point,  beyond  which  it 
looks  for  the  consummation  of  all  things.     It  is  generally  put 


Old  Testament  in  Light  of  Higher  Criticism     135 

forth  under  the  name  of  some  ancient  worthy  in  whose  mouth 
it  will  have  greater  authority.  We  have  no  difficulty  in  dis- 
covering that  the  author  of  Daniel  makes  his  hero  receive  de- 
tailed predictions  of  the  Persian  and  Greek  domination  over 
Israel  down  to  the  period  of  Antiochus  the  Great.  After  An- 
tiochus  he  expects  the  Kingdom  of  God  to  appear,  giving  all 
power  to  the  Jews.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  he  lived  in  the 
Maccabean  period  and  wrote  to  comfort  and  encourage  his 
contemporaries.  The  Hebrew  canon  places  the  book  among 
the  Hagiographa  and  not  among  the  prophets.  In  fact  two 
styles  of  composition  and  of  thought  could  hardly  be  more 
unlike  than  that  of  Daniel  and  that  of  Isaiah  or  Jeremiah. 

Among  minor  gains  of  recent  Biblical  study  may  be  men- 
tioned the  recognition  of  the  Book  of  Jonah  as  a  parable,  de- 
signed to  teach  a  much  needed  lesson  to  the  hide-bound 
Pharisees.  The  book  of  Esther  also  is  better  understood  when 
discovered  to  be  a  piece  of  fiction.  Its  blood  thirsty  narrative 
may  have  a  historical  nucleus,  though  the  present  tendency  is  to 
find  it  made  up  from  mythological  material.  In  any  case  the 
believer  must  be  relieved  to  find  that  he  is  not  obliged  to  re- 
ceive it  as  a  narrative  of  fact. 

The  bible  reader  who  has  been  accustomed  to  ascribe  the 
Pentateuch  to  Moses,  all  the  Psalms  to  David,  the  whole  of 
Isaiah  to  the  contemporary  of  Hezekiah,  the  Book  of  Daniel 
to  the  distinguished  Statesman  whose  name  it  bears,  and 
Proverbs  and  Ecclesiastes  to  Solomon  the  son  of  David,  will 
doubtless  find  the  results  indicated  in  this  paper  disquieting  and 
perhaps  alarming.  He  will  naturally  accuse  the  higher  criti- 
cism of  being  destructive  and  negative.  It  may  not  be  super- 
fluous therefore  to  point  out  that  no  criticism  can  destroy  the 
Bible.  We  have  it,  we  have  the  whole  of  it,  just  as  truly  as 
we  ever  had  it.  What  criticism  does  is  to  destroy  certain 
traditions  external  to  the  Bible  which  have  been  made  to  but- 
tress its  historical  authority.  Even  here  the  work  of  criticism 
has  accomplished  less  than  is  commonly  supposed.  The  ante- 
diluvian Chronology  in  Genesis  was  not  long  ago  accepted  as  a 


136      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

reliable  scheme  on  which  to  build  up  universal  history.  Criti- 
cism has  indeed  shown  that  this  Chronology  is  of  later  date 
than  has  been  supposed.  But  the  reason  why  its  accuracy  is 
now  surrendered  is  not  because  of  the  change  of  view  in  regard 
to  its  authorship.  If  we  had  irrefragable  proof  that  it  was 
written  by  Moses,  we  should  still  find  it  impossible  to  defend  its 
accuracy.  The  reason  is  that  other  sciences — biology,  geology, 
archaeology,  history,  find  themselves  unable  to  adopt  the  Bib- 
lical scheme.  For  the  most  part,  it  is  these  other  sciences  which 
have  made  the  old  view  of  an  inerrant  Old  Testament  impos- 
sible. This  is  only  saying  that  criticism  is  a  part  of  the  scien- 
tific advance  of  this  century. 

The  gains  which  offset  the  apparent  loss  should  not  be  for- 
gotten. It  is  no  small  thing  to  be  delivered  from  the  necessity 
of  harmonizing  everything  in  the  Biblical  narrative.  Criticism 
has  enabled  us  to  see  the  full  extent  of  the  discrepancies  with 
which  we  have  to  deal.  But  it  also  enables  us  to  make  use  of 
the  discrepancies  as  marks  of  various  stages  of  religious 
thought.  By  recognizing  them  we  are  able  to  appreciate  the 
rich  variety  of  thought  and  experience  recorded  for  us  in  the 
Bible. 

More  to  be  valued  is  the  increased  sense  of  development  in 
the  religion  of  Israel.  The  unity  of  the  Bible  is  now  seen  to  be 
the  unity  of  an  organism.  The  growth  of  the  literature  regis- 
ters the  growth  of  the  religious  ideas.  We  frankly  recognize 
the  rudimentary  nature  of  many  of  these  ideas,  and  we  are  free 
from  the  obligation  to  defend  the  features  which  show  this. 
The  command  to  exterminate  the  Canaanites,  the  toleration  of 
polygamy,  the  narrow  exclusiveness  of  the  priestly  legislation, 
the  imprecations  upon  Israel's  enemies — these  are  no  longer 
stumbling  blocks  to  us.  On  the  other  hand,  the  originality  and 
nobility  of  the  prophets  stand  out  more  distinctly,  now  that  we 
correctly  estimate  the  back-ground  from  which  they  stand  out. 

The  religious  value  of  the  Old  Testament  has  always  con- 
sisted in  its  being  a  record  of  religious  experience.  This  value 
can  never  be  affected  by  criticism.    The  Shepherd  Psalm  may 


Old  Testament  in  Light  of  Higher  Criticism     137 

not  have  been  written  by  David.  It  is  surely  no  less  precious 
to  us  that  it  came  from  the  heart  of  a  humble  believer — perhaps 
one  sorely  tried  by  the  enemies  to  which  he  briefly  alludes. 
And  the  same  is  true  of  all  those  parts  of  the  Bible  in  which 
the  soul  finds  comfort  and  help.  Criticism  does  not  affect 
them.     Thev  are  still  the  bread  of  life  to  the  hungry  soul. 


The  Old  Testament  in  the  Light  of  Higher 

Criticism 


The  Old  Testament  in  the  Light  of 
Higher  Criticism 

Revelation  and  Inspiration 

BY 

The  Reverend  Professor  MEREDITH  O.  SMITH,   M.A. 

DR.  DALE  in  his  treatise  on  the  Atonement  gives  an  ex- 
cellent illustration  of  what  we  conceive  to  be  the  nature 
of  Revelation. 

''  Although,"  he  writes,  ''  as  a  Teacher  of  religious  truth, 
the  Lord  Jesus  had  a  unique  power,  we  misapprehend  the 
character  of  the  supremacy  which  he  claims,  if  we  suppose 
that  it  is  to  be  illustrated  and  vindicated  by  placing  his  mere 
words  side  by  side  with  the  words  of  the  Prophets  who  pre- 
ceded him.  I  doubt  whether  he  ever  said  anything  about  the 
Divine  compassion  more  pathetic  or  more  perfectly  beautiful 
than  had  been  said  by  the  writer  of  the  hundred-and-third 
Psalm :  ''  Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  so  the  Lord 
pitieth  them  that  fear  him.  For  he  knoweth  our  frame.  He 
remembereth  that  we  are  dust."  It  is  not  in  the  words  of 
Christ  that  we  find  a  fuller  and  deeper  revelation  of  the  Divine 
compassion  than  in  the  words  of  the  Psalmist,  but  in  His 
deeds. 

"  There  came  a  leper  and  worshipped  him,  saying.  Lord, 
if  thou  wilt,  thou  canst  make  me  clean.  And  Jesus  ('  moved 
with  compassion:'  Mark  1:41)  put  forth  his  hand  and 
'  touched  him  ' — touched  the  man,  from  whom  kindred  had 
shrunk : — '  touched  him  ' — it  was  the  first  time  that  the  leper 
had  felt  the  warmth  and  pressure  of  a  human  hand  since  his 
loathsome  disease  came  upon  him ; — '  touched  him,*  and  said, 
I  will,  be  thou  clean !  " 

To  which  in  a  foot-note,  Dr.  Dale  adds  the  remark,  "  that 
every  one  of  the  Synoptical  Gospels  notices  the  fact  that  our 

141 


142      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

Lord  '  touched '  the  man."  See  S.  Matt.  8 :  2,  3 ;  Mark  i : 
40,  41;  Lukes:  12,  13. 

The  importance  of  this  incident  for  the  purpose  in  hand  is 
found  in  the  manner  in  which  it  enables  us  to  emphasize  the 
truth  that  the  Revelation  which  our  Saviour  imparted,  did  not 
entirely  consist  in  his  teaching.  For  really,  he  was  himself 
the  revelation.  Thus  when  he  "  looked  round  about  on  the 
Pharisees  with  anger,  being  grieved  for  the  hardness  of  their 
hearts,"  that  was  a  revelation  of  the  Wrath  of  God;  when  he 
took  little  children  up  in  his  arms  and  blessed  them,  that  was 
a  revelation  of  the  Benediction  of  God. 

Quite  different  from  this  is  the  function  of  Inspiration,  which 
is  to  be  sought,  not  in  the  actions  of  our  Saviour  himself,  but 
in  an  appropriate  activity  evoked  by  his  presence  among  cer- 
tain who  encountered  him.  Its  purpose  is  the  preservation, 
and  fructification,  of  the  appointed  lesson  to  be  obtained  from 
such  encounter.  The  lesson  itself  is  regularly  regarded  in  the 
capacity  of  a  seed,  or  a  germ;  which  seed  searches  out  the  re- 
sponse of  its  corresponding  spirit;  and  by  that  Spirit  is,  in  the 
first  place,  kept  from  perishing,  that  is  to  say,  from  being  for- 
gotten or  overlooked,  in  the  rush  of  human  life;  and,  in  the 
next  place  also,  is  quickened,  or  developed,  towards  the  gathering 
round  about  itself  of  body  and  substance,  and  the  production 
of  the  fruit  that  was  held  in  view  in  the  very  act  of  its  be- 
stowal. The  lesson,  or  the  revelation,  in  Biblical  language, 
is  referred  to  as  a  ^or^s, ,  or  Word ;  and  the  position  that  it 
occupies  as  the  germ,  or  the  seed,  from  which  the  fruits  of 
Christianity  develop,  is  expressed  in  a  single  utterance  of  our 
Saviour  himself, — ""  The  seed  is  the  zvord  of  God/'  Mean- 
while, the  various  kinds  of  Soil  that  the  Sower  encounters,  ex- 
plain the  need  for  the  operation  of  the  Spirit,  in  its  double 
duty  of  quickening  and  preserving  the  seed  which  has  been 
sown ;  since  with  the  Trodden  Ground  the  word  is  taken  away, 
or  the  Revelation,  to  put  it  more  plainly,  has  been  forgotten; 
whilst  with  the  Thorny  Ground  no  fruit  has  been  brought  to 


Old  Testament  in  Light  of  Higher  Criticism     143 

perfection, — that  is  to  say,  that  the  Revelation  has  been 
thwarted  in  the  process  of  legitimate  growth. 

Thus  primarily  and  originally  our  Saviour's  desire  was 
simply  that  his  words  and  his  actions,  so  far  as  practicable, 
might  be  remembered.     S.  Luke,  8:12. 

For  example,  the  Mother  of  our  Lord  is  said  to  have  "  kept 
all  these  things,  and  pondered  them  in  her  heart  "*,  that  is  to 
say  that,  in  a  certain  peculiar  manner,  she  was  the  person  who 
remembered  them.  "  The  comforter,  which  is  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  were  the  words  of  the  promise,  *'  He  shall  teach  you 
all  things,  and  bring  all  things  to  your  remembrance,  whatso- 
ever I  have  said  unto  you."t 

So  that  the  Spirit  of  Inspiration  is  the  spirit  of  memory, 
rather  than  the  spirit  of  invention.  This  high  esteem  in  which 
the  memory  was  held  by  the  first  disciples  lasted  down  to  the 
age  that  followed  the  Apostles ; — thus  we  find  it  in  that  remark- 
able expression  of  Papias,  "  I  did  not  think  that  I  could  get  so 
much  profit  from  the  contents  of  books  as  from  the  utterances  of 
a  living  and  abiding  voice ;  "  J  i.  e.  the  voice  of  those  who  re- 
bered  the  Revelation;  and  in  the  fervent  language  again  of 
Irenaeus  in  his  letter  to  Florinus,  where  he  calls  to  mind  S. 
Polycarp  as  relating  those  things  which  he  had  heard  from 
the  Apostles  concerning  our  Lord,  "  and  about  his  miracles, 
and  about  his  teaching,  as  having  received  them  from  eye- 
witnesses of  the  life  of  the  Word,  .  .  .  altogether  in  accord- 
ance with  the  Scriptures."  §  In  fact,  this  appreciation  of  the 
memory  continued  until  circumstances  made  it  only  too  ap- 
parent that  by  itself  it  was  no  longer  sufficient  for  the  task  im- 
posed upon  it,  and  that  our  Lord's  life  must  be  preserved  to  us 
in  writing,  if  it  was  really  to  be  preserved  to  us  at  all. 

It  may  seem,  perhaps,  at  first  sight  a  strange  thing, — and, 
in  point  of  fact,  with  our  modern  habits,  it  does  seem  a  strange 

*  S.  Luke,  ii.  i8. 

f  S.  John,  xiv,  26. 

X  Eusebius.  H.  E.,  iii,  39. 

§  Ibid.,  V,  20. 


144      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

thing, — that  God's  Revelation  should  have  been  primarily  en- 
trusted to  so  frail  and  uncertain  a  keeper  as  is  the  tenure  of 
human  memory;  seeing  that  our  Lord  might  have  acted 
readily  as  a  Scribe  to  himself,  during  the  course  of  his  own 
lifetime,  and  either  committed  his  teaching  to  writing  in  per- 
son, or  else  have  allotted  to  his  disciples  the  task  of  recording 
it,  under  his  immediate  supervision.  Yet  he  left  it  apparently 
simply  to  take  its  chances,  during  the  thirty  or  forty  years  in- 
tervening before  the  date  of  the  composition  of  the  Gospels. 
And  doubtless  also,  we  trace  a  similar  phenomenon  concerning 
the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament  before  our  Lord;  in  that 
there  intervened  in  each  case  an  analogous  interval  between  the 
pronouncement  of  the  prophecy  itself,  and  its  preservation  at 
last  in  the  form  of  a  written  volume.  St.  John  the  Baptist  was 
the  chief  of  the  prophets,  and  yet  the  prophecies  that  he  uttered 
have  not  been  written.  And  Baruch  put  in  writing  the  proph- 
ecies that  Jeremiah  had  pronounced.  So  that  the  real  question 
is  not  so  much  as  to  whether  the  Prophet  wrote  the  book  which 
is  called  by  his  name ;  but  as  to  whether  he  uttered  the  proph- 
ecies which  in  that  book  have  been  recorded.  And  thus,  to 
press  the  matter  farther  back  still,  the  real  question  is  not  so 
much  if  Moses  was  the  author  of  the  Pentateuch,  but  as 
to  whether  the  Giving  of  the  Law,  v  vojuoBsaia  *  did  ac- 
tually take  place  on  Mount  Sinai.  Because,  exactly  as  our 
Lord  left  his  Gospel  to  be  recorded  by  his  followers,  after 
his  Resurrection,  so  Moses  may  have  left  his  legislation  to 
be  collected  by  the  Israelites  after  his  death.  Dr.  Robertson, 
of  Glasgow,  has  put  the  case  plainly;  the  books  of  the  Penta- 
teuch ought  rightly  to  be  regarded  as  "  anonymous  compo- 
sitions." "  Although  other  books,  which  are  also  anonymous, 
are  accepted  as  materials  for  history,  although  the  books  of  the 
Pentateuch,  with  supreme  indifference,  say  nothing  about  their 
authorship,  it  has  been  tacitly  assumed  that  their  whole  value 
stands  or  falls  with  their  Mosaic  or  non-Mosaic  authorship. 
A  broad  distinction  is  evident  between  the  questions.    By  whose 


*  Rom.  ix,  4. 


Old  Testament  in  Light  of  Higher  Criticism    145 

instrumentality  or  authority  was  law  given?  and,  by  whose 
hands  were  books  written  which  contain  the  law?  The  es- 
sential question  is  not  as  to  the  early  or  late  date  of  the  books 
of  the  Pentateuch,  but  as  to  the  relation  in  which  the  legisla- 
tion of  the  Pentateuch  stands  to  the  whole  development  of  the 
history/'^     And  this  latter  point  we  do  account  crucial. 

Fragile  as  the  human  memory  may  easily  seem  for  the  posi- 
tion which  has  thus  been  assigned  it,  yet  from  another  point  of 
view,  it  is  in  each  case  the  interval,  between  the  recording  and 
the  event  of  the  Revelation,  which  constitutes  its  pledge  of 
reality.  For  it  means  that  the  Word  was  actually  put  to  the 
test,  and  proved  itself  of  value,  before  it  was  entrusted  to  writ- 
ing; and  that  the  recognition  of  its  value  itself  stirred  the 
Spirit,  which  animates  the  books  of  the  Bible.  "  I  am  come," 
said  our  Saviour,  "  that  they  might  have  life,  and  that  they 
might  have  it  more  abundantly ; "  or,  to  put  it  otherwise,  our 
Lord  was  the  Word  of  Life,  o  ASyo^  rfji  z,oo7n  and  it  was  the 
fact  that  its  life-giving  energy  already  had  been  recognized, 
which  ensured  the  perpetuation  of  the  Word  in  the  Gospels. 
So  of  old  time,  the  word  that  Baruch  had  inscribed  in  his  roll, 
was  found  in  the  actual  test  to  be  "  quick  and  powerful,  and 
sharper  than  any  two-edged  sword "  which  Jeremiah  could 
have  employed  against  King  Jehoiakim;  and  it  was  the  fact 
that  in  application  it  had  proved  so  effective,  which  roused 
the  determination  that  by  taking  another  roll,  and  writing  in 
it  all  the  former  words  that  had  been  in  the  first  roll,  they 
would  provide  that  it  should  not  be  extinguished,  t  Again, 
the  laws  that  fill  the  books  of  the  Pentateuch  are  not,  as  it  were, 
mere  ambitions,  or  ideals,  or  speculations,  or  experiments,  bvit 
they  had  actually  met  the  test  of  their  reception  before  they 
have  been  inserted  in  the  books ;  and  because  they  were  seen  to 
be  of  such  primary  importance,  they  found  a  place  in  the  pages 
of  the  books.  This  principle,  that  the  Word  all  along  has  been 
introduced  into  the  works  of  the  Bible  as  something  which  had 


*  Early  Religion  of  Israel,  ch.  xiii. 
f  Jer.  xxxvi. 


1 46      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

already  been  exposed  to  a  trial,  before  its  introduction,  is  our 
constant  guarantee  of  its  truthfulness.  As  will  be  seen  at  once, 
the  interval  that  we  find  interposed  between  its  first  enuncia- 
tion and  the  commitment  to  writing,  was  not  too  long  for  a 
satisfactory  test  to  be  made.  Thus,  the  fact  is  that  the  venera- 
tion which  obtains  for  the  teaching  that  occupies  the  Biblical 
pages,  far  from  being  the  upgrowth  of  later  centuries,  existed 
while  the  doctrine  was  still  held  in  memory,  and  was  the  ground 
that  rendered  its  writing  a  necessity.  Where,  for  example,  have 
we  a  deeper  veneration,  which  has  been  felt  at  any  subsequent 
period,  for  the  doctrine  taught  by  St.  Paul  to  the  Corinthians, 
than  is  implied  in  the  expressions  which  he  uses  himself  ?  which 
doctrine  up  to  the  moment  of  his  writing  he  had  kept  simply 
by  remembering  what  he  had  received ;  "  by  which  also  ye  are 
saved,'^  he  writes,  ''  if  ye  hold  it  fast,"  or  as  it  is  not  inaptly 
rendered  in  the  Authorized  Version,  ""  if  ye  keep  in  memory, 
rivt  Xoyop,  in  what  words  I  preached  it  unto  you ;  "  whilst  the 
letter  that  he  was  writing  was  but  an  assistance  towards  hold- 
ing it  fast  still  further.  Still,  we  grant  that  in  one  particular 
direction  it  does  remain  the  fact  that  the  Bible  has  appreciated 
in  the  value  that  it  holds  for  us ;  namely,  in  that  esteem  which 
always  must  appertain  to  a  treasure  which,  if  once  it  is  lost, 
can  never  be  replaced;  and  whose  function  there  is  nothing  in 
the  universe  to  correspond  to,  in  its  stead;  only  in  its  actual 
authority  there  has  been  no  accretion  since  the  time  of  its  pro- 
duction. In  the  lapse  of  time,  our  dependence  for  information, 
as  to  what  constituted  the  Apostolic  teaching,  has  been  con- 
centred more  than  at  first  upon  the  Epistles;  but  no  greater 
deference  has  been  developed  since  then  for  the  teaching  of  the 
Apostles  itself,  than  had  already  been  before  pen  was  put  to 
paper.  Unfortunately,  most  modern  scholars,  for  instance, 
do  not  read  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  with  a  greater 
reverence  than  did  those  disciples  at  Corinth,  who  were  the 
very  first  to  hear  it. 

"  The  fundamental  error,"  writes  Green,  ''  which  underlies 


Old  Testament  in  Light  of  Higher  Criticism     1 47 

all  the  arguments  of  the  critics,  .  .  .  and  vitiates  their  con- 
clusion is  the  assumption  that  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament '' 
(and  for  that  matter  the  New  Testament  as  well)  "were  not 
written  with  the  design  of  being  held  sacred  and  divinely  au- 
thoritative; but  that  in  course  of  time  they  came  to  be  treated 
with  a  veneration  which  was  not  at  first  accorded  to  them."  * 
Because  the  truth  is  that  their  subject  matter  was  already  held 
sacred,  before  they  had  been  written. 

Along  these  lines,  we  have  to  trace  a  remarkable  contrast, 
as  existing  between  the  Bible  and  the  Koran ;  and  which  by  no 
means  has  obtained  the  attention  that  might  well  have  been 
bestowed  on  it.  Yet  it  throws  a  highly  interesting  side-light 
upon  the  argument  before  us.  The  opening  words  of  the 
Koran,  for  example,  are  these : — 

"  That  is  the  Book !  there  is  no  doubt  therein ;  a  guide  to 
the  pious,  who  believe  in  the  unseen,  and  are  steadfast  in 
prayer,  and  of  what  we  have  given  them  expend  in  alms ;  who 
believe  in  what  is  revealed  to  thee,  and  what  was  revealed  be- 
fore thee,  and  of  the  hereafter  they  are  sure.  These  are  in 
guidance  from  their  Lord,  and  these  are  the  prosperous." 

As  to  the  opening  clause,  ''  That  is  the  Book,"  Mr.  Palmer 
has  the  following  note : — 

"  Although  the  Arabic  demonstrative  pronoun  means  '  that,* 
the  translators  have  hitherto  always  rendered  it  '  this,'  for- 
getting that  it  is  not  an  address  to  the  reader,  but  supposed  to 
be  Gabriel's  words  of  inspiration  to  Mohammed  while  showing 
him  the  Umm  al  Kitab — the  '  Eternal  original  of  the  Koran.'  " 

Or,  in  other  words,  the  Revelation  is  viewed  as  passing  di- 
rectly from  the  mind  of  the  Archangel  Gabriel,  through  the  in- 
spiration of  Mohammed,  to  the  pages  of  the  Koran.  Contrast 
this  with  the  incident  of  Baruch,  who  is  first  sent  with  the  mes- 
sage to  Jehoiakim,  and  after  the  word  has  actually  proved 
itself  kvEpyr}^  determines,  in  spite  of  all,  that  it  shall  be  pre- 
served by  his  pen.  So,  too,  the  interval  that  all  through  the 
Bible  is  interposed  between  the  Kijpvr^a^  or  the  actual  procla- 

*  General  introduction  to  the  Old  Testament.    The  Canon,  p.  2^. 


148       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

mation  of  the  message,  and  therpa<P>7,  or  written  record  of 
the  same.  St.  Matt.  12:41.  Thus  what  the  Koran  claims 
is  to  be  the  organ  of  revelation,  or  the  way  that  the  revela- 
tion is  imparted;  whilst  what  the  Bible  claims  on  the  other 
;hand  is  to  be  the  record  of  revelation^  or  the  way  that  the 
revelation  is  remembered.  Therefore,  in  the  one  case,  the 
inspiration  is  conceived  as  that  power  which  enabled  Mo- 
hammed to  produce  his  revelations;  whilst  in  the  other  it  is 
the  fact  of  revelation  which  has  kindled  the  inspiration  of  the 
Biblical  writers.  Practically  this  implies  that  the  claim  of  Mo- 
hammed was  the  privilege  of  dictating  revelations  at  his  per- 
sonal discretion,  and  that  he  regarded  this  as  the  characteristic 
function  of  one  who  held  the  prophetic  office;  since  the  same 
inspiration  as  guided  his  first  pronouncements  could  easily 
enable  him  to  continue  indefinitely  making  additions  to  the 
Koran.  Thus  to  all  intents,  to  acknowledge  his  claims  as 
prophet,  was  to  surrender  to  him  discretionary  powers  over  the 
guidance  of  mankind;  and  abandon  oneself  at  random  to  the 
tide  of  Mohammedan  advancement.  Such  was  not  the  case, 
however,  with  the  Old  Testament  prophets.  They  never  are 
found  seeking  to  exercise  discretionary  control  over  the  policy 
of  Israel ;  but  only  emphasizing  that  particular  message  which 
they  had  been  sent  to  deliver,  which  message  they  spoke  di- 
rectly in  the  first  place  to  the  ears  of  a  stiff-necked  people,  and, 
not  till  it  first  had  been  spoken,  undertook,  or  even  left  it  to 
their  disciples  to  undertake,  the  additional  task  of  reducing 
it  to  writing ;  so  that  far  from  the  collection  of  their  prophecies 
constituting  a  claim  to  an  undefined  sphere  of  discretion  in  the 
future,  it  represented  in  the  first  instance  but  the  attempt  to  be 
faithful  to,  and  to  give  its  due  effect  to,  and  to  preserve  from 
being  entirely  forgotten,  the  message  which  they  already  had 
delivered. 

Quite  possibly  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  prophets  seem  orig- 
inally to  have  avoided  the  pen,  as  a  medium  for  the  announce- 
ment of  their  message,  and  to  have  reserved  it  rather  for  the 
purpose  of  recording  it,  was  precisely  that  they  were  anxious 


Old  Testament  in  Light  of  Higher  Criticism     149 

that  by  speaking  it,  it  should  be  implanted  in  the  memories  of 
men,  and  through  the  memory  lying  embedded  in  their  hearts, 
should  be  retained  in  the  daily  life  as  a  living  seed,  and  prove 
the  basis  of  an  appropriate  development.  Yet  still  there  re- 
mains the  fact  that  the  resulting  development  furnishes  us  no 
good  guarantee  for  the  preservation  of  the  original  revelation ; 
viewed  as  a  seed.  Upon  the  contrary,  it  is  nearly  certain  that 
it  will  not  so  preserve  it.  According  to  that  deep  word  of  the 
Apostle : — ''  That  which  thou  sowest,  thou  sowest  not  that 
body  that  shall  be/'  "  But  God  giveth  it  a  body  as  it  hath 
pleased  him."  Thus  while  it  is  the  fact  that  the  development 
is  in  a  sense  the  outcome  and  product  of  the  Seed ;  in  a  way,  it 
is  something  different  from  the  Seed,  to  which,  externally  and 
apparently  at  least,  it  need  not  even  bear  a  resemblance.  And 
the  consequence  is  that  the  Seed  itself  is  buried  under,  or,  to 
put  it  otherwise,  it  perishes  for  the  sake  of,  the  wealth  of  its 
own  development.  Thus,  doubtless,  it  was  a  purpose  of  our 
Lord's  ministrations  that  he  might  institute  a  certain  develop- 
ment; to  run  its  appointed  course  in  human  history;  and  this 
development  was  the  natural  outcome  of  his  activity  and  pres- 
ence; yet,  at  the  same  time,  the  very  forces  which  he  himself 
had  set  going  would  never  have  kept  the  memory  of  our  Sa- 
viour's own  life,  except  in  a  very  vague  and  uncertain  way, — 
so  that  it  could  be  constantly  re-sown,  as  seed,  in  each  succes- 
sive generation, — nor  could  the  details  of  the  original  Life  be 
afterwards  recovered  from  the  results  that  it  had  accomplished. 
So  that,  unless  its  features  were  preserved  in  some  special  and 
appropriate  way,  by  the  side  of,  and  along  with,  the  develop- 
ment to  which  it  gave  the  impetus,  it  was  destined  gradually 
to  fade  away  from  memory,  and  at  last  to  be  almost  entirely 
forgotten.  Thus  we  arrive  at  what  we  conceive  to  be  the 
function  that  the  Bible  plays  in  the  structure  of  Christianity, 
viz: — 

The  Bible  preserves  the  record  of  the  Divine  Revelation, 
specifically  in  the  form  of  seed — truth. 

"  Thus  is  the  Lord's  Prayer,"  writes  Dean  Goulburn,  "  a 


150      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

seed  of  prayer,  containing  in  germ  every  petition  which  the 
human  heart  can  send  up  to  God,  even  as  the  Decalogue  is  a 
seed  of  precept,  containing  in  germ  every  rule  which  can  be 
given  for  human  conduct."*  And  yet  the  Prayer,  if  lost, 
could  hardly  be  recovered  again,  out  of  that  exuberance  of 
Christian  devotion,  which  its  own  petitions  have  done  so  much 
to  stimulate;  nor  could  the  Decalogue,  if  once  forgotten,  be 
collected  again,  out  of  the  multitude  of  succeeding  regulations, 
which  attempt  to  ensure  the  fulfilment  of  its  precepts. 

Whilst  it  will  not  come  amiss,  as  an  Anglican  theologian, 
to  remark  that  along  such  lines  I  understand  the  Sixth  of  our 
Thirty-nine  Articles,  "  Holy  Scripture  containeth  all  things 
necessary  to  salvation ;  so  that  whatsoever  is  not  read  therein, 
nor  may  be  proved  thereby,  is  not  to  be  required  of  any  man, 
that  it  should  be  believed  as  an  article  of  the  Faith,  or  be 
thought  requisite  or  necessary  to  salvation."     Not  that,  by 
such  language,  we  imply  that  the  very  depths  of  the  Christian 
religion  lie  unfolded  in  the  Scriptures  to  every  casual  reader,  or 
that  we  undervalue  the  place  of  legitimate  leadership  in  devel- 
oping their  teaching,  what  we  insist  on  is  that  a  doctrine  which 
calls  itself  Christian  should  be  rooted  at  some  definite  and 
ascertainable  point  in  the  account  of  revelation  and  maintain 
through  its  development  the  appropriate  type  which  has  been 
started  by  the  word  as  the  germ.     This,  however,  we  would 
regard  as  fundamental. 

No  writer,  upon  the  contrary,  of  the  critical  school,  will  be 
found  in  this  way,  proposing  a  revelation,  as  the  starting-point 
of  a  system  of  religious  development.  The  place  to  which  they 
uniformly  assign  it  can  hardly,  perhaps,  better  be  stated  than 
in  the  words  of  Dr.  Driver. 

"  Criticism  ",  he  writes,  "  in  the  hands  of  Christian  scholars 
does  not  banish  or  destroy  the  inspiration  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment ;  it  presupposes  it ;  it  seeks  only  to  determine  the  condi- 
tions under  which  it  operates,  and  the  literary  forms  through 
which  it  manifests  itself,  and  it  thus  helps  us  to  frame  truer 
*Thc  Lord's  Prayer.     E.  P.  Button  &  Co.,  p.  18. 


Old  Testament  in  Light  ot  Higher  Criticism    1 5 1 

conceptions  of  the  methods  which  it  has  pleased  God  to  employ 
in  revealing  Himself  to  His  ancient  people  of  Israel,  and  in 
preparing  the  way  for  the  fuller  manifestation  of  Himself  in 
Christ  Jesus.* 

The  italics,  the  reader  will  note,  are  Dr.  Driver's.  Observe 
that  the  criticism  presupposes  inspiration ;  whilst  it  helps  us  to 
frame  conceptions  of  the  "  methods  "  which  have  been  em- 
ployed in  revelation ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  the  revelation  has 
been  moved  down  the  line,  out  of  its  original  position  as  the 
starting-point,  to  a  new  place  as  the  consummation.  No  longer 
regarded  as  a  principle,  it  has  now  come  to  be  considered  a 
climax.  In  the  meantime.  Dr.  Driver  neglects  to  inform  us, 
upon  what  ground  it  is  of  scientific  method  that  he  makes  this 
presupposition ;  and  what  it  is  exactly  that  he  means  by  his  use 
of  the  term  "  inspiration  "  ? 

"  The  central  question  ",  as  a  recent  writer  has  put  it,  "  after 
all,  is  this,  Is  the  Word  of  God  the  creation  of  the  Church,  or 

is  the  Church  itself  created  by  the  Word  of  God? 

If  the  history  is  not  sufficiently  authenticated,  then 

the  supposed  Word  of  God  is  the  creation  of  the  Church.  And 
it  is  the  thinly  disguised  purpose,  or  at  least  effect,  of  the  High- 
er Criticism  more  and  more  to  approximate  to  this  position. 
....  What  the  Church  has  made,  it  can,  of  course,  unmake. 
Hence  the  unsatisfactoriness  of  (these)  methods  and  results.'*t 

Pascal,  if  I  mistake  not,  has  somewhere  a  question,  to  the 
effect  that  if  the  same  words  and  phrases  once  have  been  joined 
together  in  a  different  order,  they  make  a  different  sentence; 
and  so,  he  asks,  why  should  not  the  same  sentences,  if  only  I 
have  joined  them  together  in  another  order,  produce  another 
treatise?  thus  the  parts  of  the  Bible,  placed  in  another  order, 
compose  a  different  Bible.  It  may  not  seem  a  great  alteration 
to  change  the  sequence  of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  into  this 
new  arrangement  of  the  Prophets  and  Law ;  but  what  it  comes 
to  mean  is,  that  the  prophets  have  invented  the  commandments 

*  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testameiit.      Preface  p.  xiii. 
t  Church  Quarterly  Review,  Oct.  1899,  p.  81. 


152       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

of  the  Law,  instead  of  being  invigorated  by  them.  So,  again, 
to  connect  the  Pentateuch  with  Ezra,  rather  than  with  Moses, 
simply  transfers  it  from  the  time  of  the  entry  into  the  Land 
of  Promise,  to  that  of  the  exile  to  a  strange  land ;  or,  in  other 
words,  you  neatly  have  changed  it  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  Israel's  national  history.  Consequently  the  voMoBsdia, 
the  giving  of  the  Law  on  Mt.  Sinai, — not  necessarily  the  Pen- 
tateuch as  we  have  it  to-day, — but  what  was  actually  spoken 
by  Moses  instead  of  lying  embedded  at  the  very  heart  of  the 
nation,  all  along  the  course  of  its  history,  emerges  at  the  close 
as  a  legacy.  But,  then  again,  the  Jews  have  left  us  the  ideas 
of  the  Pharisees,  as  another  sort  of  legacy.  So,  if  the  law  is 
viewed  as  the  outcome  of  their  history,  still  the  system  of  the 
Pharisees  is  an  outcome  as  well;  whether  the  true  and  proper 
outcome,  of  course,  is  the  question ;  but  at  least  it  is  a  state  of 
things  that  really  was  reached.  Thus,  after  all,  if  Ezra  the 
Scribe  was  the  composer  of  the  Law,  what  more  natural  sup- 
position than  that  the  religion  it  teaches  is  that  of  the  Scribes 
and  Pharisees?  So  that  we  find  a  German  writer  coolly  pro- 
nouncing that,  "  The  Pharisees  were  the  truest  disciples  of 
Moses."  (Die  Pharisaer  waren  die  treuesten  Diener  Mosis, 
ihre  Theologie  ist  aber  nicht  die  Christliche.*) 

Such,  then,  is  the  conclusion  to  which  the  critical  argu- 
ments appear  to  have  ultimately  brought  us ;  they  have  simply 
given  away  the  whole  case  to  the  Pharisees.  Far  from  ac- 
knowledging the  Pharisees  as  the  true  exponents  of  Moses,  our 
Lord  Himself  insisted  that  they  did  not  really  know  Moses. 
*'  Had  ye  believed  Moses,  ye  would  have  believed  Me;  for  he 
wrote  of  Me."  In  view  of  this,  I  can  hardly  say  honestly  that 
I  am  prepared  to  accept  altogether  the  protestations  of  Dr. 
Driver  that  all  "  apprehensions  "  about  the  effects  of  these 
critical  results  on  religion  are  entirely  unfounded.  It  ap- 
pears to  me,  that  coolly  to  make  a  present  in  this  way  of  the 

*  Prof.  Sepp  of  Munich ;  in  the  Revue  Internationale  de  Theologie,  Jan., 
1899. 
t  Introduction;    Preface,  p.  xi. 


Old  Testament  in  Light  of  Higher  Criticism     153 

whole  Old  Testament  to  the  cause  of  the  Pharisees,  and  quietly 
to  allow  them  the  whole  argument,  justifies  at  least  some  ap- 
prehensions on  this  score. 

Writing,  however,  from  quite  another  point  of  view  in  last 
November's  ''Nineteenth  Century",  Mr.  W.  H.  Mallock, 
whilst  engaged  in  forecasting  the  "  Future  of  Catholicism  ", 
among  sundry  other  depreciatory  statements,  has  this  remark 
to  make  on  the  Bible.     He  estimates  that  the  "  scientific  study 

of  history is  exhibiting  the  Biblical  books  as  utterly 

incompetent,  in  themselves  to  supply  us  with  any  system  of 
coherent  doctrine."     *'  The  Church  of  Rome,  on  the  contrary, 

by  a  process  of  continuous  growth,  has  developed, 

an  increasingly  conscious  unity,  and  a  single  organ  of  thought 
and  historic  memory,  constantly  able  to  explain  and  re-state 
doctrine."  The  reader  will  observe  that  our  present  contention 
has  not  exactly  been  that  the  Scriptures  furnish  us  a  "  system 
of  coherent  doctrine  ".  Such  systems,  doubtless,  share  in  the 
limitations  which  appertain  to  all  things  human ;  but  it  does  not 
therefore  follow  that  they  are  quite  without  value.  Mean- 
while, what  we  have  tried  to  do,  is  to  make  clear  that  their  tru- 
est value  depends  upon  their  real  derivation  from  some  original 
^oro?,  or  seed,  implanted  by  God's  Revelation,  and  preserved 
to  our  own  days,  in  its  germinal  form,  only  in  the  Bible.  Now, 
it  is  not  so  much  a  feature  of  germinal  truth  that  it  should  be 
systematic.  System  appertains  to  a  stage  of  maturity.  Yet, 
so  far  as  concerns  this  "  increasingly  conscious  unity  ",  and 
this  ''  single  organ  of  thought  and  historic  memory  ",  from 
what  starting-point  is  it,  we  would  ask,  that  the  Church  of 
Rome  has  been  developing  these  things  ?  Upon  what  founda- 
tion and  basis  do  they  rest  ?  Surely  not  on  these  same  singu- 
larly incompetent  Scriptures  which  have  already  been  referred 
to.  However,  this  plea  of  Mr.  Mallock's  for  the  Papacy,  rests 
exactly  on  a  disbelief  in  any  Divine  Revelation,  as  existing  at 
the  outset.  He  insists  that  whatever  truths  were  believed  at 
the  first,  were  such  truths  as  were  at  any  rate  ''  embedded  in  a 
mass  of  error  ",  but  that  upon  the  other  hand  this  "  organ  of 


154      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

thought  and  memory  ",  and  this  "  increasingly  conscious  uni- 
ty ",  have  been  developed  after  the  close  of  nineteen  centuries, 
as  the  outcome  of  intermediate  advancement.  But,  more  than 
this,  just  as  Mohammed  viewed  the  Koran,  as  being  the  organ 
of  revelation  to  mankind  rather  than  its  record,  so  Mr.  Mal- 
lock,  as  well,  is  disposed  to  view  the  Papacy  as  an  "  organ  "  of 
truth  to  the  world,  and  not  as  its  depository.  Here,  perchance, 
we  have  disclosed  the  real  barrier  between  ourselves  and  the 
claims  of  the  Papacy.  It  is,  that  it  distinctly  asserts  itself  to  be 
an  instrument  for  the  revelation  of  God's  truth  and  will ;  were 
it  only  that  it  was  glad  to  be  its  guardian,  things  might,  per- 
haps, be  very  different.  But,  through  this  claim  that  it  can 
bestow  on  its  own  decrees  the  force  of  utterances  from  the 
mouth  of  God  Almighty,  it  clusters  human  life  round  itself, 
instead  of  our  Saviour,  and  enters  into  a  kind  of  competition 
with  our  Lord  as  the  Word  of  God,  so  that  His  own  teaching 
must  be  kept  in  the  background  that  the  policy  of  the  Vatican 
may  escape  interference.  Therefore,  what  room  can  there  be 
for  a  choice  between  the  two  ? 

''  Say  not  in  thine  heart,"  we  find  the  apostle  writing  in  the 
epistle  to  the  Romans,  "  Say  not  in  thine  heart,  who  shall  as- 
cend into  heaven?  (that  is,  to  bring  Christ  down  from  above)  ; 
or,  who  shall  descend  into  the  deep?  (that  is,  to  bring  up  Christ 
again  from  the  dead).  But  what  saith  it?  The  word  is  nigh 
thee,  even  in  thy  mouth,  and  in  thy  heart,  that  is,  the  word 
of  faith,  which  we  preach;  "  that  is  to  say,  that  the  word 
of  God  was  the  apostolic  teaching.  Set  over  against  this,  the 
apostle  sees  the  thought  that  the  word  still  remains  to  be  ut- 
tered, in  the  times  that  were  yet  in  the  future,  perhaps  even  in 
the  twentieth  century;  in  the  one  case  proclaimed  like  a  psean 
from  the  heights,  as  an  achievement,  or  wrested  with  laborious 
drudgery  from  the  very  depths,  as  a  discovery.  So,  on  the  one 
hand,  there  arises  before  us  a  proud  Authority,  propounding  its 
dicta  as  the  Word  of  God,  from  the  summit  to  which  it  has 
climbed  in  its  ambitions ;  and,  on  the  other,  we  meet  a  disdain- 
ful  so-called  science,  which  trusts  to  be  able  to  grasp  a  like  posi- 


Old  Testament  in  Light  of  Higher  Criticism    i  5  5 

tion,  for  its  own  asservations.  Whilst  I  must  say,  that  the 
simple  Christian  seems  left  standing  between  them,  much  in 
those  straits  which  have  been  described  in  the  Pilgrim's  Prog- 
ress, on  a  road  between  Giant  Pope  and  Giant  Pagan,  who  are 
neither  of  them  dead  yet,  and  for  the  present  he  must  just 
trudge  along  with  Faithful  at  his  side.  I  can  see  no  good 
reason  why  they  should  prevent  him  from  reaching  the  Heav- 
enly City,  here  at  the  change  of  the  centuries,  more  than  in 
those  preceding. 


what  Has  Become  of  Hell  ? 


What  Has  Become  of  Hell? 


The  Reverend  GEORGE  WOLFE  SHINN,  D.D. 

THIS  title  has  been  selected,  not  because  of  any  leaning  it 
may  have  toward  sensationalism,  but  simply  because  it 
states  precisely  the  purpose  of  this  inquiry. 

There  has  been  a  remarkable  change  of  late  years,  in  re- 
ligious teaching  with  reference  to  future  punishment.  Whereas 
formerly  in  theological  papers,  in  sermons  and  books  of  in- 
struction, much  was  said  about  hell,  now  it  is  but  rarely  men- 
tioned. In  fact,  by  many  an  accredited  teacher,  it  is  not  men- 
tioned at  all.  It  is  pertinent  to  ask,  therefore : —  What  has 
become  of  Hell  ? 

We  still  use  the  word  "  hell  "  in  the  Apostle's  Creed,  but  we 
are  always  careful  to  explain  that  there  it  does  not  mean  the 
place  of  punishment,  but  simply  the  place  of  departed  spirits; 
that  it  has  no  reference  to  their  condition  as  happy  or  unhappy ; 
but  simply  refers  to  the  separation  of  soul  and  body,  and  to  the 
residence  of  the  soul  in  an  intermediate  state  or  place  until  the 
resurrection  day.  We  are  not  concerned  with  that  use  of  the 
word  in  this  inquiry.  We  have  started  out  to  find  what  has 
become  of  hell  as  a  place  of  punishment.  We  hear  very  little 
about  it  except  in  the  profanity  of  the  day.  Now  and  then,  a 
man  in  his  wrath,  tells  another  to  go  to  this  place.  While  not 
approving  the  profanity,  it  may  be  suggested  that  perhaps  this 
angry  brother,  who  would  send  his  enemy  to  torture,  may  boast 
sometime  that  but  for  him  a  great  many  people  would  have 
known  nothing  about  hell.  Or  if  they  had  ever  heard  of  it,  he 
revived  what  feeble  recollection  they  retained.  You  do  not 
hear  of  it  in  the  pulpit,  or  see  any  reference  to  it  in  the  religious 
press,  or  in  the  modern  theological  book,  nor  is  it  often  brought 
up  in  religious  conversation.  It  is  tabooed  by  the  pulpit  gen- 
erally.    When,  under  stress,  the  preacher  has  to  refer  to  it,  he 

159 


1 60      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

may  adopt  the  euphemistic  method  of  one  who  spoke  of  "  the 
place  which  could  not  be  named  in  the  presence  of  cultured 
people." 

It  was  not  always  thus,  as  we  may  learn  by  taking  up  almost 
any  book  of  sermons  delivered  fifty  years  ago;  or  if  we  read 
the  diaries  kept  by  people  who  lived  in  the  days  of  our 
grand-parents;  or  if  we  read  the  history  of  religious  contro- 
versies. In  a  day  not  very  long  past,  men  argued  with  each 
other,  concerning  the  place  and  the  people  who  were  on  their 
way  thither.  Some  of  us  are  not  too  old  to  remember  the 
terrible  appeals  made  by  the  revivalists  to  flee  the  wrath  to 
come,  and  so  to  escape  the  pains  of  hell.  The  stories  which 
have  been  handed  down  to  us  concerning  the  great  revival 
movements  in  this  country,  show  that  the  prominent  theme, 
which  was  repeated  again  and  again,  and  in  every  possible 
way,  was  how  to  escape  from  hell. 

We  know,  for  example,  that  so  superb  a  thinker  as  John- 
athan  Edwards,  the  author  of  ''  The  Freedom  of  the  Will,"  was 
also  a  revivalist  of  the  most  intense  type ;  and  that  he  had  such 
power  in  portraying  the  dangers  of  the  impenitent,  that  men 
screamed  out  during  his  sermons. 

Go  back  still  farther,  and  we  find  that  religious  literature  is 
full  of  allusions  to  hell.  We  need  hardly  refer  to  Milton's 
Paradise  Lost,  and  to  Dante's  Divina  Comedia.  The  theology 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  was  so  full  of  it  that  men  have  sometimes 
thought  that  hell  was  a  creation  of  that  period. 

But  go  back  into  Patristic  literature  and  you  find  it  there 
in  large  profusion.  St.  Polycarp  said  to  the  pro-consul,  "  With 
fire  which  burns  for  an  hour  or  so  and  is  extinguished,  thou 
dost  threaten  me,  but  dost  thou  not  know  of  the  fire  of  the 
future  judgment  and  of  the  eternal  punishment  reserved  for 
the  ungodly?  "  St.  Augustine  took  pains  to  refute  the  opin- 
ions of  those  who  thought  that  the  torments  of  hell  would  only 
be  purgatorial,  and  therefore  only  of  limited  duration.  St. 
Chrysostom  described  the  miseries  of  the  future  of  the  lost. 


What  Has  Become  of  Hell  ?  1 6 1 

With  the  exception  of  Origen  and  a  few  of  his  followers,  there 
was  an  outspoken  belief  in  hell  by  all  the  Fathers. 

When  we  turn  to  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  we  certainly  find  the 
recognition  of  hell  in  those  writings.  Unhappily  in  our  Eng- 
lish Bible  the  word  hell  is  made  the  equivalent  of  four  other 
words: — Sheol,  Gehenna,  Tartarus  and  Hades.  It  is  going 
over  ground  very  familiar  to  many  to  say  that  "  Sheol,"  the 
Hebrew  word  in  the  Old  Testament,  usually  refers,  in  an 
indefinite  way,  to  the  grave  or  the  place  or  condition  of  the 
dead.  '*  Hades,"  the  Greek  word  in  the  New  Testament,  has  a 
similar  meaning,  with  perhaps  a  clearer  recognition  of  con- 
tinuing life  under  new  conditions.  It  is  the  word  ''  Gehenna," 
also  translated  hell,  upon  which  so  much  depends.  The  name 
"  Gehenna  "  was  taken  from  the  Hebrew  word  by  which  the 
valley  of  Hinnom  was  known.  That  was  the  valley  near 
Jerusalem  where  the  great  sanitary  fires,  kept  up  day  and  night, 
consumed  the  refuse  of  the  city  and  the  bodies  of  unclean 
beasts,  and  sometimes  the  bodies  of  criminals.  From  being 
the  name  of  a  locality  near  the  city  the  word  was  adopted  to 
refer  to  that  place  or  condition  in  the  unseen  world  where 
punishment  would  be  meted  out  to  the  impenitent.  And  so 
you  find  the  word  used  in  such  passages  as : — St.  Matthew  5  : 
22 ;  "  shall  be  in  danger  of  the  Gehenna  of  fire."  5  :  29 ;  "  and 
not  that  thy  whole  body  shall  be  cast  into  Gehenna."  St.  Mark, 
9 :  43 ;  "  into  Gehenna,  into  the  fire  that  shall  never  be 
quenched."  St.  Matthew,  10:  28;  "  Fear  him  which  is  able  to 
destroy  both  soul  and  body  in  Gehenna. 

We  are  not  seeking  for  explanations  now,  nor  are  we  con- 
sidering the  nature  of  future  punishment  and  the  character  of 
those  who  are  to  be  punished  hereafter.  We  are  simply  trying 
to  establish  the  fact  that  there  is  an  unbroken  chain  of  testi- 
mony to  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  hell  down  to  a  compara- 
tively recent  time.  The  fact  is  surely  well  established.  As  a 
fact  it  cannot  be  contradicted.  Even  Origen,  under  whose- 
arms  every  heretic  seeks  refuge  now,  believed  in  hell.     But 


i62      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

he  thought  it  was  not  to  be  eternal.  He  looked  for  a  final 
restoration.  Origen  is  never  to  be  cited  as  denying  future 
retribution,  but  as  only  disbelieving  the  eternity  of  torment. 

The  belief  in  hell  as  a  place  or  condition  of  punishment, 
with  varying  explanations  as  to  the  nature  and  continuance 
of  that  punishment,  has  been  the  belief  of  Christian  people 
from  the  beginning  of  Christianity  to  our  own  day. 

Now,  almost  suddenly,  certainly  with  remarkable  unanimity, 
men  have  well  nigh  ceased  to  talk  about  it.  Whereas  they  once 
said  much  about  it,  now  they  say  but  little;  some,  indeed, 
nothing  at  all.  It  has  ceased  to  be  urged  as  a  motive  for  good 
living  here  in  this  life,  and  men  are  not  told  to  prepare  them- 
selves here  to  avoid  it  there  in  the  future.  In  other  words, 
there  has  been,  if  not  an  actual  denial  of  hell,  a  very  thorough 
change  of  emphasis. 

What  has  become  of  hell?  Here  is  surely  a  very  notable 
change  in  theology  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century.  How 
did  it  come  about?  It  is  claimed  by  some  friends  of  the  late 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  that  he  did  more  than  any  other  man  in 
this  country  to  change  the  style  of  thinking  of  many  preachers 
and  of  many  laymen  who  admired  him.  If  he  did  not  begin 
the  change  he  certainly  helped  on  the  revulsion  from  the  old  doc- 
trines which  had  been  preached,  and  he  dealt  some  very  effec- 
tive blows  at  the  narrow  theology  which  had  been  accepted  by 
many  as  orthodoxy. 

The  movement,  however,  for  the  dissolution  of  hell  began 
much  earlier  in  this  country.  The  Universalist  body  came  into 
existence  here  as  early  as  1770,  as  the  antagonist  of  the  in- 
tense views  which  were  held  by  the  old  Calvinists.  Universal- 
ism  has  gradually  pervaded  the  country,  and  has  done  much  to 
tincture  the  thought  of  the  religious  world.  Crude  and  ig- 
norant as  were  many  of  the  efforts  of  the  first  Universalists, 
they  directed  their  blows  at  one  point  and  made  their  im- 
pression. 

Perhaps,  however,  nothing  has  had  so  widespread  an  in- 
fluence in  this  direction  over  intelligent  minds  in  America  as 


What  Has  Become  of  Hell?  163 

Canon  Farrar's  book  on  ''  Eternal  Hope."  It  found  a  sym- 
pathetic audience  prepared  for  it  in  different  parts  of  the  land, 
and  in  different  grades  of  society,  and  his  views  were  very 
readily  adopted.  It  was  in  vain  that  replies  were  made,  and 
that  Dr.  Pusey  issued  his  book  entitled,  "  What  is  of  the 
Faith?  "  Evidently  many  in  the  religious  world  wanted  to  get 
rid  of  hell. 

A  very  curious  compromise  was  attempted  by  some  who 
could  not  quite  accept  Farrar  and  retain  their  old  orthodoxy. 
The  compromise  is  in  the  suggestion  of  a  second  probation. 
That  is,  if  one  has  not  had  a  fair  and  full  chance  to  know  the 
truth  here,  he  will  have  a  second  chance  in  the  other  world. 

Believers  in  a  second  probation  retained  their  belief  in  a 
place  of  punishment.  One  antagonist  of  this  view  of  a  proba- 
tion after  death,  says  that  to  him  it  seems  to  be  groping  for 
"  a  new  probation,  not  for  the  culprit  but  for  the  Judge,  as  if 
they  were  apprehensive  that,  according  to  their  scheme,  He 
would  not  do  the  exactly  right  and  infinitely  kind  and  merciful 
thing  the  first  time."  They  would  give  Him  a  chance  to  do 
better  later  on. 

Now,  although  this  is  a  "  smart "  way  of  replying  to  views 
of  another  side,  it  does  not  by  any  means  sweep  away  the 
foundations  on  which  some  build  up  a  belief  that  the  future 
(before  the  final  judgment)  brings  not  only  a  growth  in  good- 
ness for  some,  but  a  growth  toward  goodness  for  others. 

It  is  very  curious  how  Purgatory,  formerly  condemned  as 
one  of  the  errors  of  Romanism,  is  yet  adopted  in  other  forms 
by  the  ultra  Protestant.  Substitute  such  an  expression  as  ''is 
trained  by  the  bitterness  of  experience  past  and  present,  warned 
by  judgments  yet  to  be  fulfilled,  in  clearer  light  beholding  things 
in  better  perspective," — substitute  this  sentence  for  Purga- 
tory, and  do  you  not  have  the  same  thing?  Purgatory  may 
carry  with  it  gross  materialistic  conceptions  of  purifying  fires, 
but  the  essential  thought  is  the  same  as  that  contained  in  the 
expressed  hope  that  somehow,  when  men  in  another  world  see 
what  sin  is,  and  how  it  harms  them  and  dishonours  God,  they 


1 64      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

will  want  to  have  it  purged  and  done  away,  and  so  will  wel- 
come the  purifying  pains.  But  even  if  we  adopt  this  view  of 
reparation  in  a  future  life  we  do  not  get  rid  of  retribution. 
Nor  do  we  by  such  a  view  necessarily  get  rid  of  eternal  pun- 
ishment. May  there  not  be  some  incorrigible  ones  left  over 
after  the  last  chance  of  reparation  is  offered?  And  if  there 
are  any,  we  are  back  again  to  the  old  thought  of  an  eternal  re- 
bellion and  hence  an  eternal  penalty. 

The  usual  plan,  however,  for  obliterating  hell  has  been  to 
explain  away  the  language  in  which  the  doctrine  of  eternal 
suffering  is  supposed  to  be  set  forth.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  figurative  language  is  used.  It  has  been  simply  impossible 
to  set  forth  the  truths  of  religion  without  the  use  of  figurative 
language.  Happiness  is  declared  under  the  figure  of  living  in 
a  beautiful  city, — the  city  of  God.  The  opposite  of  the  hap- 
piness of  heaven  is  the  misery  of  hell.  To  express  this,  fire 
is  used  as  the  dominant  figure.  Fire  is  a  symbol  of  painfulness, 
hence  of  punishment.  Then  to  render  fire  more  horrible,  an- 
other destructive  agent  is  added, — the  suffocating  fumes  of 
brimstone ;  and  to  express  the  acme  of  punishment  we  have  the 
figure  of  fire  and  brimstone,  and  are  told  of  the  lake  of  fire  and 
brimstone  where  the  smoke  of  torment  continually  ascends. 
When  such  expressions  are  used  are  we  dealing  with  material 
facts?  Is  there  a  city  whose  streets  are  paved  with  gold  and 
whose  gates  are  of  pearl?  Is  there  a  lake  whose  waves  are 
liquid  fire?  The  language  is  figurative.  If  figurative  in  one 
case,  figurative  in  both. 

But  the  figurative  language  of  Scripture  has  been  added  to 
by  the  efforts  of  men  who  have  tried  to  deter  their  fellow- 
men  from  vice  by  elaborating  the  horrors  of  hell.  So  we  have 
been  told  of  red  hot  gridirons  attended  by  shrieking  demons 
who  have  kept  the  gridirons  well  filled  with  broiling  victims. 
We  have  heard  of  huge  cauldrons  full  of  boiling  lead  and  brim- 
stone to  be  poured  over  new  comers  as  the  ceremony  of  wel- 
coming them  to  the  society  of  the  lost.  We  have  heard  of  a 
pestilential  atmosphere  laden  with  concentrated  diseases,  and 


What  Has  Become  of  Hell?  165 

men  driven  by  demons  to  breathe  this  disease-laden  air.  We 
have  heard  of  horned  and  cloven-footed  demons  goading  their 
victims  around  circles;  up  and  down  steep  heights;  onward 
and  onward,  simply  for  the  gratification  of  their  hatred  and 
to  add  to  the  sorrows  of  the  lost.  We  have  been  told  of  the 
great  chorus  of  dreadful  shrieks  that  issued  from  prisons  into 
which  special  victims  had  been  driven  for  special  enormities. 

What  ingenuity  men  have  used  to  describe  the  life  lived  by 
men  in  hell !  As  an  illustration  of  how  the  materialistic  views 
of  hell  were  kept  before  the  people  some  centuries  ago,  think 
of  that  strange  fresco  in  an  old  parish  church  in  England.  It 
is  a  sample  of  many  like  adornments  which  were  once  com- 
mon. Over  the  chancel  arch,  where  it  is  continually  in  sight, 
is  a  picture  representing  the  doom  of  the  lost.  Some  very  agile 
demons  with  pitchforks  are  shoving  poor  wretches,  men  and 
women,  down  the  throat  of  an  awful  monster.  They  do  not 
seem  to  like  it,  but  the  monster  does.  His  appetite  is  in- 
satiable and  he  has  room  for  them  all  in  his  capacious  maw. 
A  nice  thing  to  look  at  every  Sunday !  Weather  stains  merci- 
fully obliterated  the  worst  of  it  after  awhile  and  would  have 
got  rid  of  it  all,  but  along  came  the  restorer, — the  ecclesiol- 
ogist — and  he  brought  it  back  in  all  its  hideousness. 

Figurative  language  has  been  taken  literally ;  translated  into 
the  grossest  materialism  and  then  added  to  until  its  very  ex- 
travagance suggested  revolt.  But  w^hen  the  revolt  came  those 
who  would  get  rid  of  the  materialistic  views  of  hell  have  so 
completely  explained  away  all  the  figurative  language  in  which 
reference  is  made  to  hell  in  the  Scriptures  that  nothing  is  left. 
Or,  to  state  it  in  other  w^ords,  because  they  objected  to  the 
views  held,  they  have  tried  to  deny  the  reality  back  of  even  the 
figurative  terms  in  which  that  reality  was  set  forth. 

Another  effort  has  been  made  to  relieve  some  of  the  awful- 
ness  associated  with  the  idea  of  hell,  by  making  explanations 
of  the  words  "  eternal,"  "  everlasting,"  and  whatever  seems 
to  imply  the  changeless  condition  of  the  sufferings  of  the  lost. 
One  of  the  most  ingenious  is  that  which  requires  us  to  observe 


1 66      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

that  "  eternal  "  is  not  always  the  attribute  but  the  result.  Thus 
"  eternal  redemption  "  means  eternal  in  its  results.  The  act  of 
redemption  was  accomplished  on  the  Cross  in  a  day;  the  re- 
sults are  eternal.  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  are  spoken  of  as  the 
prey  of  eternal  fire,  yet  the  fire  does  not  continue.  It  is  the 
result  of  the  fire  which  is  spoken  of.  « 

Again  much  is  said  of  eternity  as  relating  to  this  age,  this 
aeon,  and  it  has  the  idea  of  completing  a  circle;  but  there  may 
be,  according  to  some  who  hold  this  view,  other  circles  beyond. 
This  is  an  seon,  and  eternity  has  reference  to  this  period  over 
which  the  gleam  of  revelation  is  thrown.  There  may  be  aeons 
and  eternities  and  eternities  beyond. 

Then  the  philosophers  come  along  and  tell  us  that  we  know 
nothing  at  all  of  time  when  we  get  beyond  the  present  material 
facts.  Time  is  the  succession  of  events.  When  we  get  out  of 
the  region  of  material  things  there  is  no  time.  And  here  comes 
that  old  monastic  story  to  illustrate  what  the  philosophers 
mean.  The  monk,  delighted  with  the  singing  of  the  birds  one 
summer  morning,  roused  himself  upon  thinking  he  had  lost  a 
few  moments  in  an  accustomed  enjoyment,  and  discovered  that 
he  had  been  listening  a  thousand  years.  And  so  the  philos- 
opher says  that  such  expressions  as  "  everlasting,"  "  eternal," 
are  to  be  regarded  as  the  blue  haze  which  ends  our  view  as  we 
look  over  the  horizon.  Everything  shades  off  into  this  vapor- 
ous nothing  and  ends  there;  that  is,  so  far  as  we  know.  We 
are  carried  thus  far,  and  then  we  are  told  that  that  is  the  end  of 
time. 

One  of  the  most  ingenious  and  earnest  efforts  in  the  way  of 
explanation  of  what  is  involved  in  the  doctrine  of  hell  is  called 
"  conditional  immortality."  The  leading  idea  is  that  all  men 
are  capable  of  survival  in  their  spiritual  nature,  but  that  not 
all  will  survive  eternally.  Some  may  cease  to  be  after  death  of 
the  body;  others  may  live  after  death  and  be  punished  for 
awhile,  but  they  are  finally  resolved  into  nothingness.  Men 
who  do  not  possess  the  sanctifying,  renewing,  immortal  spirit 
must  perish,  either  at  death  or  some  time  after  death.     Ac- 


What  Has  Become  of  Hell  ?  1 67 

cording  to  this  view,  immortality  is  a  special  gift  to  those  who 
are  united  to  Christ  by  faith.  All  those  souls  not  brought  into 
union  with  Him  lose  their  power,  and  eventually  lose  all  con- 
scious individuality.    That  is,  they  cease  to  be. 

The  doctrine  of  conditional  immortality  makes  it  necessary 
to  deny  the  natural  immortality  of  the  human  soul.  This  is  a 
most  important  point,  for  if  the  soul  may  cease  to  be,  then 
eternal  death  means  a  dissolution  which  continues  eternally. 
It  is  boldly  declared  by  those  who  hold  this  view  that  the  Scrip- 
tures speak  nowhere  of  immortality  apart  from  Christ;  that 
there  is  no  permanent  life  except  for  the  believer. 

There  are  many  things  connected  with  this  doctrine  of  con- 
ditional immortality  which  would  make  almost  any  one  wish 
he  could  accept  it. 

These  various  theories, — denials,  explanations  and  the  like — 
indicate  a  most  unsettled  condition  of  Christian  eschatology  at 
the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century.  There  is  no  agreement 
among  Christian  people  on  these  points,  but  on  the  contrary 
there  is  great  divergence  of  view,  as  is  very  evident  in  sermons 
and  newspapers,  in  trials  for  heresy  and  in  the  discussions  of  or- 
dinary people.  It  is  most  seen  in  the  uncertain  sounds  which 
proceed  from  the  pulpit,  and  in  the  almost  entire  cessation  of  the 
appeal  to  fear.  Appeals  to  fear  now ! — How  seldom  are  men 
warned  of  the  judgment  to  come!  Hell  has  lost  its  terrors. 
What  has  become  of  hell  ? 

The  appeals  to  fear  have  well  nigh  ceased,  and  yet  there 
is  no  fact  which  we  are  so  compelled  to  see  as  the  fact  of  retri- 
bution. The  law  of  retribution  works  in  our  present  life.  We 
become  aware  of  it  in  earliest  infancy,  and  we  never  become 
developed  in  character  until  we  have  learned  to  fear  that  which 
is  evil  and  to  shun  the  consequences  of  sin.  There  is  a  sense  of 
righteousness  in  all  men,  and  all  men  know  that  unrighteous- 
ness brings  punishment.  It  is  fair  to  assume  that  what  holds 
good  in  the  present  life, — that  what  is  a  part  of  man's  very 
structure  here,  will  continue  hereafter.  We  may  give  up  en- 
tirely the  notion  of  a  material  hell,  but  we  cannot  give  up  the 


1 68       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

doctrine  of  retribution.  Suffering  must  follow  sin,  and  there- 
fore to  appeal  to  fear  is  not  only  legitimate  but  it  is  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  structure  of  man's  nature.  Let  us  grant 
that  the  descriptions  of  hell  are  figurative.  Let  us  admit  that 
men  have  blundered  in  accepting  as  literal  what  was  intended 
to  be  figurative.  Let  us  grant  that  there  is  no  material  lake 
of  torment.  Yet  after  all  there  is  something  back  of  the 
imagery.  There  is  something  real :  so  real  that  men  may  well 
strive  to  escape  it.  It  cannot  be  well  with  him  who  passes 
hence  in  his  sins. 

If  we  are  asked  for  reasons  for  believing  in  future  retribu- 
tion we  need  not  dwell  upon  the  thought  of  Divine  sovereignty 
showing  its  detestation  of  sin  by  punishment.  That  view  has 
been  brought  out  with  frightful  distinctness  in  Puritan  the- 
ology. Rather  let  us  call  attention  to  the  fact  which  forces 
itself  upon  the  notice  of  even  the  less  thinking  men.  It  is 
this : — Men  are  condemned  by  themselves.  They  must  recog- 
nize at  some  period  that  they  prepared  themselves  for  their  own 
place  and  for  their  own  condition.  A  rather  grotesque  illus- 
tration of  this  point  is  suggested  by  a  once  popular  preacher. 
It  is  the  story  of  a  man  who  got  into  the  wrong  boat.  He 
was  a  prize  fighter,  and,  rushing  in  a  hurry  to  embark  on  an 
excursion  boat,  got  into  one  filled  with  a  company  of  enthu- 
siastic Methodist  people  bound  for  a  camp-meeting.  When  the 
boat  started  he  found  out  his  mistake  and  offered  the  captain 
all  the  money  he  had  if  he  would  land  him  somewhere.  He 
was  out  of  place.  His  character  did  not  accord  with  that 
around  him.    He  was  a  most  unhappy  man. 

Feeble  as  the  illustration  is,  it  suggests  that  each  man  is  ma- 
king his  own  future  along  the  lines  of  his  own  character. 
Now  if  this  be  so  it  is  perfectly  legitimate  to  appeal  to  fear. 
There  is,  however,  such  a  tone  of  uncertainty  about  this  matter 
of  retribution  that  people  almost  gain  the  impression  that  re- 
ligious teachers  are  trifling  with  them.  The  dread  of  speaking 
out  boldly  causes  many  a  sermon  to  lose  its  point.  The 
preacher  seems  afraid  to  say  what  he  believes,  or  appears  to  be 


What  Has  Become  of  Hell?  169 

in  great  doubt  whether  after  all  it  makes  any  difference  how 
people  live.  Some  lay  people  have  great  reluctance  in  hearing 
anything  about  hell  or  retribution  of  any  kind.  It  is  a  distaste- 
ful topic.  Awhile  ago  a  clergyman  was  requested  to  resign 
his  parish  because  of  a  difference  between  his  vestrymen  and 
himself  upon  this  subject.  He  warned  his  hearers  in  some 
sermons  that  unrepented  sin  must  be  punished  in  another 
world.  His  vestrymen  informed  him  they  did  not  believe  in 
hell  any  longer  and  they  seemed  to  think  they  had  abolished  it 
by  ceasing  to  believe  in  it. 

But  however  distasteful  it  is  to  men,  as  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  retribution  it  must  be  set  forth.  There  is  no  need  of  falling 
into  the  error  of  those  who  delighted  in  describing  the  doom  of 
the  lost;  nor  into  the  error  of  others  who  mistake  what  is 
figurative  for  what  is  literal.  No  need  of  allowing  the  imagi- 
nation to  run  riot  over  the  mysteries  of  the  future.  In  a 
straight-forward  fashion  they  who  believe  in  retribution  must 
declare  the  difference  between  the  righteous  and  the  wicked. 

The  pulpit  is  losing  some  of  its  power  because  it  so  seldom 
appeals  to  healthy  fear.  It  has  been  taken  for  granted  that 
men  could  always  be  reached  by  appeals  to  their  better  nature. 
The  fact  has  been  overlooked  that  the  better  nature  is  often 
hidden  from  sight  by  the  encrustation  of  worldliness  and  sin. 
The  conscience  of  men  must  be  aroused,  and  the  most  effectual 
quickening  of  conscience  is  through  the  dread  of  the  judgment 
to  come. 

It  is  not  for  any  of  us  to  explain  the  thousand  difficulties 
that  spring  up  just  as  soon  as  we  think  of  the  separation  of 
men  by  character  in  the  world  now  unseen.  It  is  not  well  to 
discuss  them  in  the  pulpit,  for  we  have  so  little  to  help  us  in 
the  formation  of  opinions.  The  contention  is  that  as  there  is 
future  retribution,  so  men  must  be  warned  against  it  now,  and 
there  must  be  an  appeal  again  and  again  made  to  the  motive 
of  fear. 

//  is  this  failure  to  appeal  to  fear  which  accounts  in  part  for 
the  decline  of  interest  in  personal  religion  by  so  many.     It  is 


170      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

the  seeming  willingness  of  so  many  Christian  people  to  give  up 
all  reference  to  retribution  that  is  making  it  difficult  for  some 
to  know  what  course  to  pursue.  We  may  talk  as  we  will 
about  the  evanescent  nature  of  fear,  and  we  may  talk  about 
its  being  an  inferior  motive,  but  in  all  other  things  in  life  it  is 
appealed  to.  Take  it  out  of  life  and  chaos  comes  in  ordinary 
matters.  Because  it  has  been  taken  out  of  religion — out  of  the 
religion  of  our  time — there  has  been  the  weakening  of  the 
force  of  religion.  If  we  had  perfectly  normal  beings  to  deal 
with — and  that  is  a  modern  way  of  saying,  if  we  were  all 
without  sin — then  might  there  be  no  reference  to  fear,  but  an 
appeal  to  everything  high  and  holy  within  us.  We  have  to 
do  with  beings  who  are  sinful  and  who  must  be  led  up  to  the 
higher  motives  by  the  exercise  of  the  lower. 

What  then  has  become  of  hell  ?  It  has  not  been  obliterated. 
It  cannot  be  obliterated.  Retribution  exists  as  an  awful  fact 
back  of  all  figurative  language.  Men  in  our  day  have  over- 
looked retribution  in  seeking  to  get  rid  of  materialistic  notions 
concerning  hell.  The  time  has  come  to  recall  the  awful  fact 
of  retribution.  But  it  must  be  done  discreetly,  and  always  with 
those  exceptions  in  mind  which  so  greatly  modify  it. 

There  are  allowances  to  be  made  when  we  consider  the 
working  out  of  retribution  as  it  pertains  to  the  future.  First 
of  all,  it  cannot  include  children  in  its  penalty  inasmuch  as  not 
inherited  sin  but  wilful  sin  is  punished,  and  children  are  irre- 
sponsible. And  we  read  one  of  the  reasons  why  there  has  been 
such  revolt  against  the  doctrine  of  retribution.  It  has  been 
taught  that  men  are  to  be  condemned  for  original  sin.  One  of 
the  thirty-nine  articles  of  the  Anglican  and  American  Churches 
has  a  clause  which  has  often  been  misunderstood  in  favour  of 
such  teaching.  "  It  deserveth  God's  wrath  and  damnation." 
What?  Not  the  being  who  has  come  into  this  inheritance  of 
sin,  but  original  sin  itself.  Certainly  God  hates  sin.  But  there 
came  One  who  was  without  sin.  He  came  to  be  the  Lamb 
without  spot,  who  by  the  sacrifice  of  Himself  once  made, 
should  take  away  the  sins  of  the  world. 


What  Has  Become  of  Hell  ?  171 

Here  then,  on  one  hand,  is  an  universal  fact, — the  infection 
of  sin  in  every  human  being ;  and  sin  deserves  God's  wrath  and 
damnation.  On  the  other  hand  is  another  fact  as  universal, — 
that  Christ  has  tasted  death  for  every  man; — died  that  He 
might  pay  the  penalty  for  every  man.  Does  not  one  fact  over- 
balance the  other  ?  If  so,  there  can  be  no  wrath  or  damnation 
now  for  the  infection  of  our  nature.  Punishable  sin  is  the  con- 
scious violation  of  law. 

Then,  in  the  next  place,  in  thinking  of  future  retribution 
we  must  always  think  of  the  large  number  of  people  who  are  as 
irresponsible  as  the  veriest  infants.  They  may  have  intelli- 
gence enough  for  the  purposes  of  daily  life  but  no  more.  The 
religious  nature,  existing  somewhere  in  every  human  being, 
finds  but  imperfect  modes  of  manifestation,  or  is  altogether 
hidden.  We  are  not  speaking  of  idiots  or  of  the  insane,  but 
of  many  people  who,  while  belonging  in  neither  of  these  classes, 
are  no  more  responsible  than  are  children.  We  cannot  think 
of  their  being  consigned  to  penalty  in  the  other  world. 

Then  as  we  think  of  future  retribution  we  come  to  the  great 
bulk  of  those  who  have  never  had  the  opportunity  to  hear  the 
Gospel, — the  vast  multitude  of  the  heathen.  Are  they  all  con- 
demned for  the  infection  of  their  nature,  if  Christ  died  for 
them?  Are  they  all  condemned  for  rejecting  a  Gospel  of 
which  they  have  never  heard?  What  of  the  heathen,  then,  in 
the  life  to  come?  We  can  know  very  little  about  their  future 
condition  except  that  they  will  be  judged  righteously  accord- 
ing to  a  standard  which  they  themselves  must  admit  is  just. 

Part  of  the  perplexity  with  reference  to  the  heathen  arises 
from  two  errors, — first,  in  thinking  of  them  as  all  equally  con- 
demned to  perdition,  and  then  thinking  of  eternal  happiness 
as  alike  for  all  the  saved.  Since  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  the 
heathen  stand  as  all  other  men.  They  come  within  the  merits 
of  that  sacrifice  although  they  are  unconscious  of  the  fact.  If 
they  are  condemned  it  will  not  be  because  of  original  sin,  but 
because  they  have  not  lived  up  to  their  own  laws. 

When  a  correct  view   is  taken  of  responsibility — respon- 


172       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

sibility  according  to  knowledge — it  relieves  the  doctrine  of 
retribution  considerably,  inasmuch  as  it  narrows  down  the 
number  of  the  lost  to  those  who  consciously  and  wilfully  reject 
the  offer  of  salvation. 

When,  beside  all  this,  we  take  a  correct  view  of  future  bliss 
and  of  future  woe  we  find  still  mo.re  relief.  It  cannot  be  that 
all  the  redeemed  in  the  future  will  be  equally  happy  and  that 
all  the  lost  will  be  equally  wretched,  for  there  are  varying  de- 
grees of  capacity.  There  must  be  an  immeasurable  distance, 
for  example,  between  the  saintly  martyr  whose  whole  life  was 
a  conflict  and  whose  death  came  as  a  happy  release, — an  im- 
measurable distance  between  his  experiences  in  the  eternal 
kingdom  and  those  of  a  little  child  whose  coming  into  life  and 
whose  departure  hence  were  on  the  same  day.  There  must  be 
infinite  grades  of  happiness  there,  as  there  must  be  vast  dif- 
ferences between  those  who  are  driven  into  outer  darkness. 

And  what  of  those  who  are  driven  from  the  presence  of  the 
Lord?  What  are  their  experiences?  How  long  does  their 
expulsion  last?  Is  it  forever  and  forever?  Or  is  there  some 
limit?  If  they  learn  obedience  through  their  sufferings,  will 
their  sufferings  end  ?  And  is  there  in  some  far  off  future  some 
final  restoration  so  that  the  last  vestige  of  rebellion  shall  be 
removed  ? 

What  answers  shall  be  given  to  these  questions?  No  man 
can  answer  them  except  to  express  the  hope  that  somehow  the 
justice  of  God  may  be  satisfied,  and  the  sinner's  rebellion  cease. 
But  we  know  nothing  clearly  upon  these  points.  We  do  know 
that  there  is  retribution  for  sin, — for  sin  unrepented  of  and 
unforgiven.  Whether  that  retribution  continue  for  one  year, 
or  for  a  thousand  years,  or  for  eternity  is  not  material  to  de- 
cide. He  who  dies  in  sin  passes  on  to  be  judged  for  the  deeds 
done  in  the  body.  Having  rejected  the  offers  of  mercy  here  he 
must  meet  penalty  there.  The  man  who  dies  impenitent  and 
unforgiven  finds  his  retribution. 

Judgment,  like  the  gift  of  life,  is  immediate.  It  is  not  to  be 
looked  for  only  in  the  future.     It  is  now.    The  soul  that  sins 


What  Has  Become  of  Hell  ?  173 

dies.  If  one  would  know  what  sin  merits,  he  sees  in  the  cross 
of  Christ  a  costly  sacrifice  for  its  cancellation.  There  God 
has  registered  His  estimate  of  sin,  and  there  we  are  to  read 
what  sin  is,  from  what  sin  has  done.  Future  judgment  is  no 
arbitrary  act.  It  is  not  something  which  springs  from  laws  to 
be  set  in  motion  hereafter.  It  is  the  working  out  of  laws  under 
which  we  are  now  living.  If  we  sin  wilfully  now,  we  must 
suffer  for  it.  If  we  pass  hence  with  a  load  of  unrepented  and 
unforgiven  sin,  judgment  must  surely  follow  us  wherever  we 
go.  But  it  is  not  a  new  judgment.  It  is  only  a  continuation 
of  a  judgment  begun  here;  something  inseparable  from  sin. 
Why  should  we  fear  to  speak  of  a  judgment  to  come  when  we 
know  that  a  judgment  has  already  come?  True,  the  present 
judgment  is  not  in  every  instance  that  which  brings  bitter 
anguish,  but  it  is  just  as  real  as  if  men  groaned  in  agony.  It  is 
a  separation  from  goodness ;  a  loss  of  spiritual  power ;  a  falling 
below  the  ideal.  When  men's  eyes  are  opened  they  may  see 
that  the  loss  of  what  they  might  have  been  and  their  degrada- 
tion through  sin,  is  indeed  the  visitation  of  penalty.  Judg- 
ment consists  quite  largely  in  deprivation.  Such  a  judgment 
has  begun  here  and  it  points  to  the  awful  issues  of  the  future 
when  the  day  of  earthly  probation  shall  have  ended. 

We  must  admit  the  moral  government  of  God  in  the  present 
life.  What  reason  is  there  to  think  that  it  will  cease  in  an- 
other life?  If  sin  be  the  corruption  of  man's  nature,  and  that 
corruption  be  not  checked  here,  then  the  man  goes  hence  with 
an  inward  condition  that  seeks  to  conform  itself  to  its  sur- 
roundings. What  can  they  be  ?  Surely  whatever  they  are  they 
are  different  from  the  surroundings  of  those  who  have  re- 
ceived that  corrective  of  evil  which  is  provided  by  the  incar- 
nation of  Christ  and  the  indwelling  of  the  Spirit. 

When  we  think  of  an  evil  man  seeking  to  find  his  place  in 
the  other  world,  how  can  we  object  to  the  use  of  expressions  of 
Scripture  such  as  ''  fire  ",  "  darkness  ",  "  chains  "  ?  Do  not 
these  figurative  words  enable  us  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  wretch- 
edness such  as  other  words  could  not  express?     Figurative 


1 74      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

though  they  may  be  they  point  to  some  fearful  reaHty.  Sup- 
pose it  to  be  the  ceaseless  wailing  of  regret : — "  This  is  my 
doing.  I  brought  this  on  myself."  Can  we  fully  understand 
the  agony  of  such  iteration  ?  Over  and  over,  "  I  brought  this 
on  myself."  No  shifting  of  responsibility.  Nothing  but  a 
clear-eyed  view  of  what  he  has  done,  and  of  what  he  has  lost. 
And  that  to  go  on  and  on !  Why,  whoever  has  felt  here  in  this 
life  one  hour's  remorse  knows  what  hell  is,  for  he  has  exper- 
ienced it  in  his  own  soul.  To  endure  it  for  a  day,  or  a  year, 
for  many  years,  for  an  aeon!  God  help  us,  we  cannot  even 
grasp  the  thought!  We  struggle  with  words  that  tell  us  of 
fire  and  darkness  and  demons  and  chains  and  torment,  but 
with  the  result  of  knowing  only  that  there  is  some  frightful 
reality  far  beyond  our  present  human  experiences.  One  of  the 
most  solemn  questions  asked  by  our  Lord  of  certain  hypocrites 
was,  *'  How  can  ye  escape  the  damnation  of  hell  ?  "  The  dam- 
nation of  Gehenna!  He  who  warned  men  against  speaking 
idle  words,  could  He  himself  use  words  that  were  idle  ?  There 
must  surely  be  something  to  dread  else  He  had  not  warned  men 
to  escape  it.  ; 


Future  Punishment 


Future  Punishment 


The  Reverend  CHARLES  ALBERT  DICKINSON,   D.D. 

UNQUESTIONABLY  the  doctrine  of  future  retribution 
does  not  hold  the  place  in  religious  thought  that  it  held 
fifty  or  even  twenty-five  years  ago.  Theologians  do  not  empha- 
size it  as  they  once  did ;  preachers  do  not  make  as  much  use  of  it 
as  a  warning;  and  it  apparently  has  very  little  influence  as  a 
working  belief  in  the  lives  of  the  laity.  This  i^  especially  true 
of  Protestants.  Among  the  Catholics  the  doctrine  has  a 
stronger  hold,  but  even  among  the  more  intelligent  classes  of 
that  faith  it  seems  to  be  weakening. 

This  change  is  not  peculiar  to  any  one  country,  but  is  general 
throughout  Christendom,  being  more  pronounced,  perhaps, 
where  intelligent  progress  is  more  marked. 

Prof.  Joseph  Angus,  D.D.,  a  leading  Baptist  of  London, 
said  within  the  last  decade :  ''  The  doctrine  of  future  punish- 
ment has  become  within  the  last  fifty  years  a  subject  of  grave 
discussion;  and  not  a  few  writers  think  that  the  evidence  of 
a  state  of  eternal  conscious  punishment  has  been  greatly 
shaken."  Bishop  E.  R.  Hendrix,  D.D.,  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church,  South,  says,  '*  That  the  doctrine  of  future  retri- 
bution after  death  is  less  frequently  a  theme  of  the  pulpit  than 
was  the  case  a  generation  ago  is  doubtless  true."  And  says 
Dr.  Washington  Gladden,  an  eminent  Congregationalist,  *'  It 
seems  to  be  generally  believed  that  the  opinion  of  the  church 
with  respect  to  retribution  has  been  greatly  changed  within  the 
last  century.  As  to  the  forms  by  which  the  doctrine  is  set 
forth,  this  belief  is  well  founded." 

The  question  occurs  to  the  thoughtful  mind,  is  this  change 
in  the  direction  of  a  final  elimination  from  our  creeds  of  the 
doctrine,  or  is  it  tending  toward  such  a  restatement  of  the  doc- 
trine that  it  will  eventually  have  a  more  vital  effect  upon  life 

177 


178       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

and  character  than  formerly  ?  Has  the  new  century  found  us, 
as  some  think,  drifting  carelessly  into  an  indifferent  material- 
ism, or  is  it  true  as  that  eminent  German  scholar,  Dr.  C.  F. 
Kling,  affirms,  "  that  our  age  enters  with  an  earnestness  and 
intensity  such  as  no  earlier  one  has  done,  into  the  eschatological 
examination,  and  presses  forward  in  the  complete  development 
of  this  doctrine — one  sign  among  the  many  that  we  are  hasten- 
ing to  the  great  decision?  " 

I  am  inclined  to  agree  with  Dr.  Kling,  and  to  see  in  the 
changes  in  theological  thought  and  statement  which  have  made 
the  end  of  the  old  century  notable,  an  epochal  transition  of 
the  human  mind  from  ecclesiastical  error  to  Gospel  truth,  and 
from  the  slavery  of  literalism  to  the  liberty  of  the  Spirit. 

In  1889  an  interesting  volume  entitled  That  Unknown 
Country  was  published,  in  which  some  fifty  of  the  most 
able  representatives  of  religious  thought  in  this  and  other 
countries  expressed  their  views  upon  future  retribution. 
The  volume  has  a  special  interest,  not  only  because  it  brings 
together  so  many  divergent  views  concerning  the  form  of  the 
dbctrine,  but  because  it  reveals  the  fact  that  even  the  most 
liberal  thinker  seems  forced  by  reason  to  admit  that  there  is 
some  kind  of  retribution  after  death.  On  the  one  hand,  we 
have  set  forth  by  Dr.  Hewit,  Superior  of  the  Paulist  Institute 
of  New  York,  the  extreme  penal  theory  which  originated  with 
the  Latin  Fathers,  and  which  for  twelve  centuries  has  pre- 
vailed in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  and  among  the  orthodox 
Protestants ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  the  milder  theories 
of  God's  dealings  with  the  impenitent,  as  presented  by  such 
thinkers  as  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  and  Dr.  Edward  Everett  Hale. 

The  striking  feature  of  the  volume  is  the  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious attempt  of  nearly  all  of  the  writers  to  break  away  from, 
or  to  mitigate  the  stern  logic  of  the  old  Latin  system,  and  to 
repudiate  the  aspersions  cast  upon  the  divine  character  by  the 
Latin  conception  of  hell, — a  feature  which  is  evidently  in- 
dicative of  the  general  tendency  of  modern  religious  thought. 

The  feature  of  the  old  theory  of  future  retribution  which 


Future  Punishment  179 

most  offends  modern  reason,  and  antagonizes  modern  Chris- 
tian sentiment  is  that  the  impenitent  soul  is  tortured  by  an  al- 
mighty wrathful  God  to  satisfy  His  justice.  The  Presbyterian 
Confession  of  Faith  teaches  that  the  punishment  of  sin  shall 
be  "  most  grievous  torments  in  soul  and  body  without  inter- 
mission in  hell-lire  forever."  Spurgeon  said,  "  In  fire  exactly 
like  that  we  have  on  earth  thy  body  will  lie  asbestos-like  forever 
unconsumed;  all  thy  veins  roads  for  the  feet  of  pain  to  travel 
on."  And  President  Edwards  taught  that  hell  is  like  a  red-hot 
oven  in  which  the  wicked  are  to  be  eternally  roasted  for  the 
glory  of  God ;  all  of  which  ideas  are  but  somewhat  exaggerated 
echoes  of  the  literalisms  of  the  Latin  Schoolmen,  one  of  whom, 
who  flourished  A.  D.  300,  declares  that  in  hell  "  the  intelligent 
fire  burns  the  limbs  and  restores  them,  feeds  on  them  and 
nourishes  them." 

While  such  representations  might  impress,  and  perhaps 
frighten  iqto  an  unwilling  penitence  the  ignorant  masses  of 
past  ages,  they  could  in  the  long  run  only  repel  the  intelligent 
thinker  whose  conception  of  God  is  derived  from  the  words  of 
Christ  as  interpreted  by  the  Christian  consciousness  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  so  the  last  few  years  have  witnessed 
many  notable  attempts  upon  the  part  of  theological  and  relig- 
ious leaders  to  rescue  the  doctrine  of  future  retribution  from 
the  odium  into  which  it  had  fallen,  and  reinstate  it  as  a  power 
in  modern  preaching.  While  many  of  our  ablest  thinkers  have 
been  thus  employed,  and  while  there  have  been  several  hot  con- 
troversies like  that  which  nearly  rent  the  American  Board 
asunder  some  years  ago,  the  rank  and  file  of  the  clergy  have 
hesitated  to  preach  upon  the  subject,  the  average  churchgoer 
has  grown  more  and  more  skeptical  concerning  it,  and  the  un- 
churched masses,  if  they  think  of  it  at  all,  only  make  light  of  it. 
The  doctrine,  like  a  dilapidated  sanctuary,  seems  to  be  tem- 
porarily closed  for  repairs,  and  although  skilful  builders  are 
at  work  upon  it,  there  is  evidently  danger  that  the  present  gen- 
eration will  not  be  able  to  make  much  use  of  it.  The  time  has 
not  come,  as  it  must  come,  when  the  truth  that  the  wages  of  sin 


i8o      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

must  inevitably  be  moral  and  spiritual  death  will  make  such  a 
potent  appeal  to  the  enlightened  reason  that  men  will  act  as 
instinctively  and  continuously  under  the  influence  of  it  as  they 
now  act  under  the  influence  of  the  simple  proposition  that  fire 
burns. 

Any  opinion  upon  the  exact  status  of  the  doctrine  would 
necessarily  be  relative,  and  dependent  not  only  upon  the  view 
point  of  the  observer,  but  upon  his  theological  predilections. 
We  are  at  present  in  the  whirl  and  dust  of  the  transition  period, 
and  what  we  see  are  doubtless  very  imperfect  parts  of  the  re- 
habilitated truth.  With  the  proneness  of  the  laity  to  do  their 
own  thinking,  and  the  inability  of  theologians  to  agree  in 
their  thinking,  it  would  be  rash  to  attempt  to  say  what  any 
considerable  body  of  people  really  do  believe  upon  this  subject. 
The  very  fact,  however,  that  the  church  universal  has  not  yet 
given  its  sanction  to  any  definite  statement  of  the  doctrine 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  it  is  not  within  the  purpose  of 
revelation,  as  it  certainly  is  not  within  the  power  of  reason, 
to  state  it  in  clearly  defined  terms.  The  advocates  of  diametri- 
cally opposed  statements  think  that  they  are  sustained  by  the 
Bible,  and  reason  has  as  many  theories  as  there  are  theorists. 
From  my  own  standpoint  I  can  see  as  it  were  certain  shapes  in 
the  air  which  suggest  at  least  whither  the  thought  of  the  day 
is  tending. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God  with  its  correlate 
the  Brotherhood  of  Man  is  to  be,  I  think,  the  working  centre 
of  the  theology  and  anthropology  of  the  twentieth  century. 
From  this  centre,  where  Christ  Himself  evidently  stood,  we  are 
to  derive  our  views  of  God's  character  and  administration,  and 
our  conceptions  of  the  future  life.  It  might  almost  be  said 
that  the  chief  characteristic  of  modern  religious  thought  is  the 
emphasis  which  it  gives  to  the  Divine  Fatherhood.  It  is 
doubtless  due  to  this  conception  of  God's  character  that  the  old 
doctrine  of  retribution  has  been  so  seriously  shattered,  and  that 
from  its  fragments  so  many  new  and  modified  forms  have  ap- 
peared.    Taking   the   three   classes   into   which   Christendom 


Future  Punishment  i8i 

may  be  roughly  divided,  the  theological  teachers,  the  profess- 
ing believers,  and  the  unchurched  masses,  it  is  doubtless  true 
that  a  vast  majority  of  them  are  to-day  bringing  all  of  their 
religious  beliefs  and  ideas  to  the  test  of  this  central  doctrine. 
The  masses  outside  the  churches,  so  far  as  they  think  at  all 
upon  the  subject  of  a  future  life,  rest  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously in  the  belief  that  God  is  a  good  Father,  and  are  either 
Agnostics  or  practical  universalists;  the  churchgoing  people, 
while  they  desire  to  be  loyal  to  their  creeds,  are  nevertheless 
very  restive  under  the  old-time  retributive  clauses,  and  either 
insist  upon  their  revision,  or  interpret  them  in  the  light  of 
God's  love  in  a  way  that  would  have  incurred  the  charge  of 
heresy  fifty  years  ago;  while  the  theologians,  influenced  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent  by  this  all  prevailing  conception  of  the 
Divine  Father  are,  as  has  already  been  said,  doing  their  best  to 
restate  the  doctrine  of  future  retribution  so  that  it  shall  be  true 
to  Christ's  thought  upon  the  subject,  and  at  the  same  time 
shall  not  violate  that  universal  Christian  consciousness,  which 
is  the  century's  most  glorious  product  of  His  other  teachings. 
Among  the  attempts  in  this  direction  which  have  already  won 
many  advocates  may  be  mentioned  the  following : 

CONDITIONAL   IMMORTALITY 

The  teachers  of  this  theory,  one  of  the  ablest  of  whom  is 
Rev.  Edward  White,  D.D.,  of  England,  insist  that  natural 
immortality  is  taught  neither  by  reason  nor  by  primeval  tradi- 
tion, nor  by  Revelation,  but  is  denied  by  the  Scriptures  both  ex- 
plicitly and  expressly;  that  everlasting  life  is  the  gift  of  God 
through  Christ;  and  that  everlasting  death  is  just  what  the 
terms  imply, — the  eternal  non-existence  of  the  soul.  This  view 
finds  wide  acceptance  in  England,  and  it  is  gaining  ground  in 
this  country. 

II.       UNIVERSALISM 

This  perhaps  is  the  tacit  belief  of  the  greatest  number  of 
those  who  think  of  a  hereafter.  It  has  many  forms,  each  of 
which  admits  that  sin  is  punished,  but  all  of  which  teach  that 


1 82      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

all  men  everywhere  will  be  saved.  Some  Universalists  be- 
lieve that  salvation  begins  before  or  at  the  time  of  death; 
others  think  that  there  are  penalties  beyond  the  grave,  but  that 
in  the  "  restitution  of  all  things  '* 

" Not  one  soul  shall  be  destroyed, 

Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 

When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete." 

In  one  or  the  other  of  these  theories,  annihilation  or  restora- 
tion, multitudes  of  earnest  religious  thinkers  find  it  possible 
to  reconcile  the  Scriptural  declarations  concerning  the  final 
state  of  the  impenitent  with  Christ's  representation  of  God  as 
a  loving  Father.  Some  unable  to  believe  that  any  soul  can 
ever  cease  to  exist,  and  convinced  that  all  sin  must  have  its 
fitting  penalty,  admit  that  that  penalty  may  extend  beyond  the 
grave,  but  deny  that  it  is  eternal.  Assured  in  their  own  minds 
*'  that  aiovios  does  not  by  any  means  always  or  necessarily  con- 
note endlessness,"  they  accept  the  doctrine  of  restoration. 
Others,  convinced  "  that  the  most  awful  fact  in  human  life  is 
the  fact  that  man  can  resist  all  the  sympathetic  pleadings  of 
God,  and  that  it  is  not  within  the  power  of  omnipotent  love  to 
save  a  soul  against  its  will,"  find  no  ground  in  human  nature 
or  the  Bible  for  a  belief  in  universal  salvation,  and  so  take 
refuge  in  the  theory  of  the  final  annihilation  of  the  wicked. 
Both  schools,  convinced  that  a  good  God  will  not  suffer  any 
sentient  being  in  His  universe  to  remain  in  eternal  agony,  and 
that  an  omnipotent  God  cannot  suffer  an  eternal  rebellion  in 
His  universe,  come,  by  opposing  hypotheses,  to  ultimate  agree- 
ment in  the  Scriptural  passage :  **  It  pleased  the  Father  that 
in  Him  should  all  fulness  dwell;  and  having  made  peace 
through  the  blood  of  His  cross,  by  Him  to  reconcile  all  things 
unto  Himself  .  .  .  whether  they  be  things  in  earth  or  things 
in  heaven." 

Now  while  this  is  the  trend  of  much  of  the  modern  thinking 
when  unhampered  by  ecclesiastical  traditions  and  expediencies, 
there  is,  apart  from  these  and  all  other  hypotheses,  a  growing 
conviction  in  the  consciousness  of  the  age  as  to  the  real  serious- 


Future  Punishment  183 

ness  of  sin  and  its  penalty.  The  old  penal  and  governmental 
statements  concerning  future  punishment  were  so  unreal  and 
confusing,  that  they  had  little  grip  upon  human  life  and  char- 
acter; and  it  is  perhaps  too  true,  as  an  eminent  writer  has  said : 
"  A  sign  that  the  received  philosophy  of  retribution  has  ceased 
to  represent  any  real  belief  is  seen  in  the  scarcely  concealed 
tendency  everywhere  observable  among  the  champions  of  the 
old  theology  to  treat  the  whole  subject  lightly.  The  theme  is 
one  around  which  humour  is  often  suffered  to  play  in  ministers' 
meetings ;  many  facetious  allusions  of  one  sort  or  another  are 
made  to  it ;  if  it  must  not  be  said  of  some  of  them  that  hell  is 
a  huge  joke,  it  is  certain  that  it  cannot  be  regarded  by  them  as 
an  awful  reality.  And  yet  if  Christ's  words  are  to  be  accepted, 
hell  is  an  awful  reality ;  it  is  something  more  awful  in  its  de- 
structive possibilities  and  pathetic  impossibilities  than  any 
physical  burning  of  fire  and  brimstone.  It  is  the  awful  alter- 
native to  heaven  in  a  world  of  moral  beings  whom  infinite  love 
has  endowed  with  the  power  of  choice ;  and  the  awfulness  con- 
sists not  so  much  in  the  pain  of  him  who  chooses  hell,  as  in  the 
sorrow  of  God  and  all  good  creatures  who  are  obliged  to  wit- 
ness the  choice,  without  the  power  to  avert  it.  The  moral 
degeneration  and  ruin  attached  to  selfishness,  and  which  will 
forever  be  attached  to  it,  is  a  condition  which  grows  more 
awful  and  impressive  as  the  race  becomes  more  enlightened 
spiritually:  the  new  century  will  be  impressed  with  it  as  no 
former  age  has  been.  This  doctrine  lies  at  the  root  of  all  of 
Christ's  teachings,  and  as  has  been  well  said,  "  It  can  be 
preached  with  the  demonstration  of  the  Spirit  and  with  power. 
No  man  who  understands  this  view  of  the  subject  will  ever  be 
heard  treating  it  facetiously,  and  he  will  feel  that  the  terrible 
fact  must  continually  be  kept  before  the  eyes  of  transgressors." 
In  connection  with  this  general  review  of  the  status  of  the 
doctrine  of  future  punishment  in  modern  religious  thought,  I 
have  been  asked  to  give  my  own  view  concerning  it.  Perhaps 
this  view  has  already  been  unconsciously  foreshadowed  in 
what  I  have  written.     I  believe  that  the  moral  consequences  of 


1 84       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

sin  are  inevitable  and  awful,  but  that  they  are  perfectly  consist- 
ent with  the  love  of  God  as  a  Father.  God  works  in  and 
through  His  universe  according  to  what  we  call  natural  laws. 
These  laws  are  nothing  more  nor  less  than  God's  method  of 
expressing  Himself.  They  are  the  ways  in  which  He  creates 
the  world,  the  human  body,  and  the  human  spirit,  "  and  adjusts 
one  substance  and  form  to  another  in  the  infinitely  complex 
relations  of  matter  and  spirit  to  attain  the  purposes  of  His 
love."  These  laws  are  "  the  hands  of  the  living  God,"  with 
which  He  holds  up,  preserves,  and  controls  His  universe.  They 
are  the  hands  which  swing  the  constellations  along  the  blanks 
of  space,  which  hold  Arcturus  and  Orion  in  their  orbits,  which 
hurl  the  thunderbolts,  spread  out  the  clouds  like  a  canopy,  and 
gather  the  waters  of  the  ocean  into  their  hollow.  They  are 
round  about  us  everywhere.  They  are  the  hands  of  the  living 
God,  who  is  working  here  and  now  in  every  blade  of  growing 
grass  and  every  falling  drop  of  water.  They  are  the  hands 
which  sustain  and  keep  us  as  long  as  we  conform  ourselves  to 
their  guidance ;  but  it  is  a  fearful  thing  to  fall  into  or  against 
them  either  in  a  physical  or  a  spiritual  sense.  Some  time  ago 
in  a  Southern  city  a  horse  which  was  tied  to  an  iron  post  was 
seen  to  fall  suddenly  dead.  A  man  seeing  him  fall  rushed 
across  the  street,  and  putting  his  hand  on  the  iron  post  stooped 
to  take  hold  of  the  horse's  bridle,  when  to  the  amazement  of 
the  spectators  he  too  fell  dead  beside  the  horse.  A  second  man 
rushed  to  his  assistance,  and,  in  stooping  to  lift  him,  brought 
his  head  near  the  iron  post.  There  was  a  flash  and  he  too  fell 
upon  the  pavement  unconscious,  but  not  dead.  What  was  the 
secret  of  these  terrible  phenomena?  The  horse  and  the  men 
had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  living  God.  They  had  uncon- 
sciously violated  a  law  of  their  physical  being  and  made  their 
bodies  the  conductor  of  that  subtle  and  awful  force  which  we 
call  electricity.  An  electric  wire  had  fallen  upon  the  iron  post 
and  had  surcharged  it  with  death  which,  under  other  circum- 
stances, would  have  been  light  and  life  giving  power.  No- 
body thought  of  blaming  God  for  this  calamity.     People  in 


Future  Punishment  185 

spite  of  these  constantly  occurring  accidents  still  consider  elec- 
tricity as  one  of  the  most  beneficent  and  useful  forces  of  the 
physical  world. 

Now  what  is  true  physically  is  true  in  a  larger  sense  spirit- 
ually. The  violation  of  a  spiritual  law  brings  spiritual  pain 
and  suffering.  God  has  made  us  so  that  we  can  be  happy  only 
when  we  are  in  harmony  with  Him.  It  is  a  part  of  the  very 
nature  of  things  that  sin  and  selfishness  shall  bring  their  own 
punishment,  for  they  put  us  out  of  harmony  with  God.  They 
make  us  so  that  we  do  not  love  the  things  which  God  loves  or 
desire  the  things  which  He  desires.  They  shut  us  up  to  our- 
selves so  that  we  keep  growing  smaller  and  smaller  spiritually 
until  what  ought  to  be  a  large  happy  soul  becomes  a  miserable 
little  thing  incapable  of  loving  anything. 

But  God  loves  us  for  all  this,  and  His  mercy  never  ceases. 
Stricken  as  man  is  with  the  disease  of  selfishness,  God  makes 
every  provision  to  restore  him,  and  when  man  refuses  to  be 
restored,  and  persists  in  turning  his  back  upon  divine  love,  and 
going  out  of  the  world  in  selfish  impenitence,  still  I  believe  he 
will  meet  with  no  experience  in  after  life  that  will  in  any  way 
reflect  upon  the  divine  compassion. 

I  will  illustrate  what  I  believe  to  be  the  Biblical  view  of  this 
man's  hereafter.  A  wealthy  father  has  a  son,  who  through 
some  violation  of  the  law  of  his  being  has  become  hopelessly 
insane.  The  father  is  plunged  into  the  deepest  sorrow  and 
does  everything  within  his  power  to  bring  his  son  back  to  his 
right  mind,  but  all  in  vain.  The  father  becomes  deeply  inter- 
ested in  other  insane  people,  and  finally  his  love  and  sympathy 
for  this  unfortunate  class  which  no  skill  can  relieve  or  cure, 
prompt  him  to  build  and  endow  a  magnificent  hospital  wherein 
every  convenience  and  comfort  are  provided  for  those  who 
have  lost  their  minds.  Go  into  that  hospital  with  me  and  walk 
through  its  various  wards.  Here  you  see  a  poor  woman  who 
thinks  she  must  figure  up  the  number  of  grains  of  sand  on  the 
seashore.  Love  has  provided  for  her  paper,  slate  and  pencil, 
and  there  she  sits  day  after  day  intent  only  on  that  endless 


1 86      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

maze  of  figures.  Here  is  a  man  who  thinks  that  he  must  pay 
the  national  debt;  he  is  frantic  and  desperate  whenever  he  is 
not  counting  his  money.  Love  has  provided  him  with  a  box 
of  coppers,  and  he  is  counting  them  out  over  and  over  again 
from  sunrise  to  sunset.  Go  farther  and  open  that  door.  It 
is  very  dark  within,  and  you  shudder  when  you  are  told  that  a 
human  being  has  to  dwell  there  all  the  time.  She  has  a  pecu- 
liar kind  of  mania,  and  withal  her  eyes  have  become  so  sensi- 
tive that  she  cannot  bear  the  least  ray  of  light  without  excru- 
ciating pain.  Love  has  made  for  her  a  separate  room  and 
drawn  the  curtains  close.  Go  a  step  farther  and  look  in 
through  that  grated  door.  There  sits  the  son  of  the  wealthy 
founder  of  this  hospital.  His  hands  are  manacled,  his  eyes 
are  bloodshot  and  restless.  There  is  the  look  of  a  demon  on 
his  face.  Love  has  put  him  behind  those  iron  bars  and  man- 
acled his  hands,  for  without  these  barriers  he  would  take  the 
life  of  his  best  friend.  He  has  even  conceived  an  intolerable 
hatred  for  his  father.  He  is  madly  beside  himself ;  beyond  the 
possibility  of  ever  knowing  or  realizing  that  his  father  loves 
him. 

What  have  these  unfortunate  people  in  common  with  you 
and  me  ?  They  cannot  mingle  with  us,  or  sympathize  with  us, 
or  work  with  us.  Their  direful  misfortune  has  put  them  out 
of  the  sphere  of  rational  humanity,  and  all  that  human  love  and 
sympathy  can  do,  is  to  make  them  as  comfortable  as  possible 
till  the  end  shall  come. 

There  is  nothing  which  so  exactly  defines  sin  in  the  Biblical 
sense  as  madness.  The  prodigal  was  beside  himself.  His  re- 
turn to  the  father  is  spoken  of  as  *'  coming  to  himself,"  to  his 
right  mind.  A  man's  true  self  is  that  which  is  always  kept  in 
harmony  with  God.  When  he  turns  from  God  and  gives  him- 
self over  to  his  selfish  appetites  and  desires  he  is  much  like 
those  unfortunates  who,  imprisoned  in  their  one  weary  idea, 
were  trying  to  reckon  up  the  sands  on  the  seashore,  or  pay  the 
national  debt.  This  one  idea  which  isolates  a  man  from  God 
and  from  his  fellowmen,  this  selfish  figuring  for  one's  own  in- 


Future  Punishment  187 

terests,  this  habit  of  selfish  thinking  and  selfish  loving,  man 
must  take  with  him  to  the  isolation  of  the  world  to  come,  and 
it  must  be  to  him  his  world  in  which  he  must  live,  and  move, 
and  have  his  being.  Though  infinite  love  may  surround  him 
even  there  with  the  tokens  of  its  compassion,  though  it  shall 
do  all  that  Omnipotence  can  do  to  mitigate  his  sufferings,  yet 
the  probability  is  that  there,  as  here,  he  will  remain  in  stolid 
unconsciousness  of  the  divine  yearning  and  care,  and  possibly 
with  manacled  hands,  think  with  hatred  of  the  holy  and  loving- 
God.  This  is  what  he  sometimes  does  in  his  madness  here 
upon  the  earth  before  he  has  entered  the  great  asylum  which 
love  itself  has  provided  for  them  that  are  lost. 

You  ask  me  how  long  this  asylum  shall  stand  in  God's  uni- 
verse. I  answer,  as  long  as  one  mad,  unhappy  soul  needs  the 
restraining  power  of  omnipotent  love,  so  long  shall  it  be  true 
that  God  shall  "  make  the  wrath  of  men  to  praise  Him,  and  the 
remainder  of  wrath  will  He  restrain;  "  so  long  shall  all  heaven 
wonder  at  and  adore  that  marvellous  mercy  which  provides 
even  for  its  enemies  an  asylum  to  mitigate,  so  far  as  in  Om- 
nipotence lies,  the  wretchedness  which  they  have  brought  upon 
themselves  and  in  which  they  choose  to  remain. 

But  how  long  will  they  choose  to  remain  ?  As  long  perhaps 
as  they  shall  have  the  power  of  choice.  Dives  does  not  ask  to 
go  to  Abraham's  bosom.  There  are  no  attractions  for  him 
there.  He  simply  wants  Lazarus  to  come  to  his  place  and  re- 
lieve his  thirst.  "  Unrestrained  appetite  was  his  sin  on  earth, 
unsatisfied  appetite  is  his  punishment."  All  he  wants  in  Hades 
is  to  have  his  appetite  appeased,  and  the  thing  which  he  most 
wants  is  the  thing  which  he  cannot  have.  It  is  not  in  the 
power  of  infinite  love  to  give  it  to  him  any  more  than  it  was  in 
the  power  of  the  father  to  take  the  burning  fever  out  of  his 
mad  boy's  brain.  Love  could  surround  Dives  with  external 
comforts.  It  could  perhaps  make  for  him  a  mansion  in  Hades 
whose  windows  would  look  out  upon  the  sun-kissed  hills  of 
Paradise,  but  it  cannot  relieve  him  of  his  selfish  self  or  compel 
him  to  covet  a  place  in  Abraham's  bosom. 


1 88       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

This  is  the  best  solution  I  can  give  of  the  dark  mysteries 

which  surround  our  subject.     I  have  no  arithmetic  by  which  I 

can  reckon  the  duration  of  retribution.     I  have  no  philosophy 

which  proves  to  me  that  sin  is  necessarily  immortal.     I  would 

that  the  conviction  of  my  mind  were  as  strong  as  the  desire  of 

my  heart  that 

"  Good  shall  fall 
At  last,  far  off,  at  last  to  all, 
And  every  winter  change  to  spring." 

"  So  runs  my  dream."  I  wish  it  were  more  than  a  dream. 
I  blame  no  man  who  tries  to  find  in  reason  and  in  Scrip- 
ture this  Ultima  Thule  of  the  world's  hope.  If  I  cannot 
conclude  with  him  that  the  consummation  of  Christ's  work 
must  be  the  tinal  restoration  of  the  entire  race,  it  is  not  because 
1  do  not  sympathize  with  him  in  his  attempt  to  solve  the  dark 
problem  of  human  sin  and  misery,  but  because  my  reason  and 
my  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures  prevent  me  from  reaching 
this  conclusion.  I  cannot  be  a  Universalist  because  I  do  not 
believe  in  the  power  of  Omnipotence  to  save  a  soul  against  its 
will,  and  because  everything  which  I  can  see  here  in  this  world 
among  men  indicates  that  there  is  a  point  beyond  which  evil 
character  becomes  fixed  and  unchangeable. 

If,  however,  a  man  should  tell  me  that  in  the  far-off  aeons  of 
eternity  the  vast  asylum  of  the  lost  shall  be  depopulated  be- 
cause the  madness  of  sin  has  spent  itself  and  its  victims  have 
dropped  away  into  that  eternal  unconsciousness  which  is  "  the 
blackness  of  darkness,"  and  '*  the  second  death,"  I  should  be 
more  willing  to  agree  with  him,  for  I  am  more  and  more  con- 
vinced that  the  final  end  of  sin  is  death,  and  that  life  and  im- 
mortality are  the  gift  of  God  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

My  own  struggle  has  been  in  reconciling  the  divine  love 
with  the  fact  of  a  future  retribution.  This  done,  I  am  willing 
to  leave  the  times  and  seasons  in  God's  hands. 


Is  Punishment  Everlasting  ? 


Is  Punishment  Everlasting 


BY 


The  Reverend  JAMES  DE  NORMANDIE,  D.D. 

THE  view  of  the  Christian  church  upon  the  subject  of  pun- 
ishment is  unmistakable.  For  many  centuries  it  has 
been  quite  commonly  held  that,  for  the  vast  majority  of  souls, 
punishment  was  in  a  realm  of  fiery  tortures,  and  it  was  ever- 
lasting. 

From  the  time  of  Origen,  a  few  voices,  here  and  there,  have 
been  lifted  against  this  view;  but  they  have  been  feeble  and 
almost  unheard  amidst  the  loud  and  consenting  testimony  of 
the  great  body  of  believers.  Those  who  are  predestined  unto 
life  were  chosen  unto  everlasting  glory,  and  all  others  were 
bound  over  to  the  wrath  of  God,  subject  to  death,  "  and  most 
grievous  torments  in  soul  and  body,  without  intermission,  in 
hell  fire  forever." 

All  through  Christian  literature  one  meets  passages  which 
show  that,  as  if  by  common  consent,  this  view  was  held  with- 
out question.  *'  How  shall  I  admire,"  says  Tertullian,  "  how 
laugh,  how  rejoice,  how  exult,  when  I  behold  so  many  proud 
monarchs  groaning  in  the  lowest  abyss  of  darkness,  so  many 
magistrates  liquefying  in  fierier  flames  than  they  ever  hurled 
against  the  Christians,  so  many  philosophers  blushing  in  red- 
hot  fires  with  their  deluded  pupils,  so  many  tragedians  more 
tuneful  in  the  expression  of  their  own  sufferings,  so  many  dan- 
cers tripping  more  nimbly  from  anguish  than  ever  before  from 
applause!"  A  modern  theologian  says  '*  Should  the  fire  of 
eternal  punishment  cease,  it  would  in  a  great  measure  obscure 
the  light  of  heaven  and  put  an  end  to  a  great  part  of  the  happi- 
ness and  glory  of  the  blessed."  Another  writes,  ''  that  the 
saints  may  enjoy  their  beatitude  and  the  grace  of  God  more 
richly,  a  perfect  sight  of  the  punishment  of  the  damned  is 
granted  to  them."  The  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for 
Foreign  Missions  says.     "  To  send  the  gospel  to  the  heathen  is 

191 


192       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

a  work  of  great  exigency.  Within  the  last  thirty  years  a  whole 
generation,  of  five  hundred  millions,  have  gone  down  to  eternal 
death."  Occasionally  in  some  official  way  we  find  that  this  view 
is  still  emphasized.  Canon  Liddon  of  St.  Paul's,  the  leading 
preacher  and  theologian  of  the  English  Church  in  the  present 
generation,  in  a  sermon  of  ordination,  wherein  he  pleads  witli 
the  candidates  to  declare  the  whole  counsel  of  God,  refers  to  a 
decision  where  it  was  ruled  "  that  it  is  permissible  in  law  for  a 
clergyman  to  express  a  hope  for  the  final  restoration  of  the 
lost ",  and  then  adds :  "  The  question  is  a  question  not  of  the 
inclinations  of  a  sinful  creature,  but  of  the  revealed  will  of  a 
holy  God.  May  we  consistently  with  that  will  indulge  that 
hope?  Assuredly  not."  ''For  nothing  is  more  certain  than 
that  by  the  terms  of  the  Christian  revelation  any  such  hope  is 
delusive  and  vain,  since  it  is  opposed  to  the  awful  truth  that 
they  who  die  out  of  favour  with  God  and  are  lost  are  lost  irre- 
vocably, lost  forever.  If  Holy  Scripture  is  still  to  be  our  rule 
of  faith.  Scripture,  I  submit,  is  decisive.  If  endless  punish- 
ment could  be  described  in  human  words,  no  words  could  ex- 
haust the  description  more  absolutely  than  the  recorded  words 
of  Christ.  They  admit  of  no  limitation,  they  are  patient  of 
no  toning  down  or  softening  away;  in  the  page  of  the  evan- 
gelist they  live  for  all  time  before  the  eyes  of  men,  in  all  their 
vivid,  awful  power.  If  Jesus  Christ  has  taught  us  anything 
certain  about  the  other  world,  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  penal 
fire  must  last  forever." 

Of  course  Canon  Liddon  ignores  all  the  results  of  modern 
Biblical  criticism,  which  probably  he  was  unwilling  or  fearful 
to  study,  and  takes  his  stand  upon  the  old  idea  of  the  literal  in- 
spiration and  infallibility  of  the  scriptures ;  and  for  those  who 
take  this  view  there  are  many  passages  to  substantiate  it. 
''  Scripture  ",  he  says  truly,  "  is  no  less  explicit  as  to  the  end- 
lessness of  the  woe  of  the  lost  soul  than  as  to  the  endlessness 
of  the  scene  or  instrument  of  its  punishment." 

We  find  the  words  ''  eternal  ",  "  everlasting  ",  and  ''  for- 
ever and  ever  "  associated  with  torment  and  destruction  and 


Is  Punishment  Everlasting?  193 

fire.  "  The  vengeance  of  eternal  fire."  ''  They  perish  forever 
without  any  regarding  it."  "  O  God,  why  hast  thou  cast  us  off 
forever?  "  ''  The  everlasting  burning."  "  Lord  of  the  ever- 
lasting fire."  Jude  speaks  of  ''  a  blackness  of  darkness  "  which 
is  reserved  forever.  Revelation  says  of  the  penal  woe  of  the 
lost,  that  it  lasts  "  unto  ages  of  ages." 

One  may  put  over  against  these  a  multitude  of  expressions 
which  utterly  deny  and  make  impossible  the  idea  of  any  ever- 
lasting wrath  of  God  being  visited  upon  His  children  in  the 
form  of  eternal  fire  or  punishment.  How  can  we  reconcile 
with  any  such  doctrine  passages  like  these : — '*  His  anger  en- 
dureth  but  for  a  moment  ";  ''  He  will  not  always  chide,  neither 
will  He  keep  His  anger  forever  ";  ''  the  Lord  is  merciful  and 
gracious,  slow  to  anger  and  plenteous  in  mercy  " ;  "  the  good- 
ness of  God  endureth  continually  " ;  "  like  as  a  father  pitieth 
his  children,  so  the  Lord  pitieth  them  that  fear  Him  ";  ''  God 
is  love  " ;  while  the  whole  life  and  teaching  of  Jesus  and  the 
whole  spirit  of  the  gospels  and  epistles  have  a  great  overweight 
against  the  idea  of  eternal  punishment  in  any  place  of  fire.  It 
has  not,  however,  been  usual  for  theologians  to  take  the  gen- 
eral or  the  highest  spirit  of  the  Bible  as  the  substance  of  doc- 
trine, and  while  they  taught  that  even  a  few  texts  were  suffi- 
cient to  justify  the  most  awful  views  of  God  or  the  future,  it  is 
not  strange  that  the  view  common  to  the  church  for  centuries 
about  everlasting  punishment  found  its  authority.  It  has  been 
accepted  thoughtlessly,  unconcernedly,  as  the  teaching  of 
Scripture,  without  any  effect  upon  the  multitude,  and  as  a 
nightmare  upon  many  beautiful  and  gentle  souls.  It  has  not 
deterred  from  worldliness  and  sin,  and  it  has  not  been  of  much 
efficacy  toward  truth  and  righteousness.  It  has,  however,  for 
centuries  been  regarded  as  essential  to  Christian  faith,  and 
even  the  greatest  English  preacher  of  this  generation  is  found 
solemnly  declaring  that  a  Christian  may  not  even  indulge  the 
hope  that  there  can  be  any  final  escape  from  eternal  punish- 
ment in  the  fires  of  hell. 

Nevertheless  it  is  quite  evident  that  the  close  of  this  cen- 


1 94      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

tury  bears  witness  that  if  the  authorized  declaration  of  the 
church  has  not  changed,  an  entire  change  has  come  over  the 
better  part  of  Christendom  in  regard  to  this  doctrine.  The 
emphasis  upon  it  has  greatly  softened,  its  prominence  has  been 
lessened,  its  gloomy  and  lurid  pictures  are  not  longer  por- 
trayed, and  by  more  and  more  of  the  leading  preachers  of  all 
sects  it  is  kept  out  of  their  discussions,  while  they  freely  speak 
of  other  views,  which,  perhaps  without  thought  of  the  issue, 
make  the  old  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment  entirely  untenable. 
Among  those  views  the  first  and  most  evident  one  is  the 
result  of  modern  Biblical  criticism.  It  may  be  said  that 
among  scholars,  while  searching  investigations  are  still  being 
made,  upon  many  questions,  and  further  light  is  sought  upon 
single  books  or  events,  there  is  substantial  agreement  upon  the 
errancy  of  the  Scriptures.  Plenary  inspiration,  literal  infal- 
libility, has  vanished.  Upon  many  subjects  we  know  that 
these  authors  spoke  with  limitations  and  in  agreement  with 
the  current  theories  of  their  day.  When  Moses,  David,  Jesus 
Christ,  and  Paul  speak  of  hell  and  eternal  fire  and  everlasting 
punishment,  it  is  with  the  idea  of  illustration,  or  in  keeping  with 
the  general  views  accepted  by  their  hearers.  When  Jesus,  in  the 
Oriental  and  tropical  style  which  belongs  to  much  of  his  teach- 
ing, says  at  the  conclusion  of  the  allegory  of  the  sheep  and  the 
goats,  "  these  shall  go  away  into  everlasting  punishment,  but 
the  righteous  into  life  eternal,"  the  picture  is  of  a  paradise  and 
a  Gehenna,  two  realms  separated  by  an  impassable  barrier. 
The  higher  and  more  spiritual  thought  of  the  day  gives  us  a 
universe  so  full  of  God  that  there  is  no  room  for  a  hell  where 
He  is  not.  The  most  profound  scholars  of  the  Bible  and  the 
liberal  sects  of  Christendom  have  long  accepted  these  views 
of  inspiration  and  interpretation  which  have  brought  relief 
and  joy  to  so  many  anxious  hearts,  and  made  easy  and  grate- 
ful the  rejection  of  some  of  the  most  awful  doctrines  of  the 
past  theology.  But  now,  at  the  close  of  the  century,  when 
we  find  a  halting  consent  won  to  them  by  leading  preachers 
like  Dr.  Munger  and  Dr.  Gladden  and  Dr.  Abbott  and  Dr. 


Is  Punishment  Everlasting?  195 

Briggs,  we  know  the  victory  is  gained,  and  to  uphold  the  doc- 
trine of  everlasting  punishment  by  a  few  quotations  from  the 
Scripture  is  quite  as  outgrown  as  the  Ptolemaic  system  of  the 
universe.  Says  Dr.  Munger,  "  The  theories  of  the  past  gen- 
eration are  fast  disappearing;  verbal,  dynamic,  plenary,  and  in- 
spiration covering  all  scientific  and  historical  reference, — none 
of  them  are  any  longer  insisted  upon."  Says  Washington 
Gladden,  ''  God  never  designed  to  give  us  an  infallible  book." 

The  growth  of  the  humanitarian  spirit  which  has  been  very 
great  during  the  century  now  drawing  to  its  close,  has  had 
much  to  do  with  overthrowing  the  old  views  about  everlasting 
punishment.  In  spite  of  the  vast  preparations  of  the  principal 
nations  of  the  world  for  war,  in  spite  of  the  wars  that  are  now 
being  waged  with  such  seeming  injustice,  as  the  intercourse 
among  the  nations  has  rapidly  increased,  as  the  old  prejudices 
and  enmities  and  ignorances  have  disappeared,  there  has  been 
a  vast  increase  of  the  spirit  of  human  sympathy  and  helpful- 
ness and  brotherhood.  This  has  always  been  a  marked  feature 
of  Christianity.  The  impartial  historian  must  admit  that  it 
brought  a  deeper  and  wider  idea  of  sympathy  into  the  world. 
It  emphasized  charity  as  its  cornerstone.  And  however  far 
we  have  fallen  from  the  whole  Christian  ideal,  no  other  truth 
of  Christianity  has  had  such  a  constant  declaration  and  no 
other  truth  has  been  as  nearly  approached  in  its  practical  fruit. 
The  early  churches  began  their  life  by  contributions  to  the 
poor.  Christendom  blossomed  into  institutions  of  every  kind 
to  relieve  the  suffering.  But  never  as  in  our  own  century 
have  there  been  such  wise  and  consecrated  efforts  everywhere 
to  solve  the  great  problems  of  social  inequality  and  social  deg- 
radation. The  best  and  most  generous  lives  are  devoted  to  the 
relief  of  every  kind  of  suffering.  The  work  extends  to  the 
brute  creation  If  a  man  belabours  a  dumb  beast  in  our  streets. 
we  arrest  him  on  a  charge  of  cruelty.  The  laws  which  permit- 
ted whipping  at  the  post  have  been  repealed  almost  everywhere, 
as  unworthy  of  our  humanity.  If  we  see  a  father  beating  his 
child,  we  turn  away  from  the  inhuman  spectacle.     We  look 


196      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

with  gratitude  for  our  escape  from  the  day  when  man  put  his 
brother  man  upon  the  rack  or  in  the  dungeon.  And  yet  the 
Infinite  Father,  whom  we  profess  to  worship  as  just  and  mer- 
ciful and  good,  is  to  inflict  the  most  agonizing  pain  upon  the 
most  of  His  children,  and  we  are  to  behold  them  and  rejoice 
at  them,  not  only  for  a  short  time  but  as  one  of  the  most  emi- 
nent theologians  of  this  country  said,  "  not  for  one  minute,  not 
for  one  day,  not  for  one  age,  not  for  two  ages,  not  for  a  hun- 
dred ages,  not  for  ten  thousands  of  millions  of  ages,  one  after 
another,  but  forever  and  ever,  without  any  end  at  all,  and 
never,  never,  to  be  delivered." 

Now  the  humane  spirit  of  this  age,  ignoring  all  bodies  of 
divinity  by  men  however  able  or  consecrated,  casts  away  all 
such  reasoning,  and  falls  back  upon  the  larger,  older,  wider 
truth  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  Brotherhood  of  Man. 
No  man  who  accepts  God  as  a  Father,  with  all  the  sweet, 
divine,  far-reaching  significance  of  that  word,  can  really  be- 
lieve that  His  children  are  to  be  tortured  in  some  realm  forever, 
beyond  His  vision  or  reach  or  recall.  No  man  who  believes 
in  the  brotherhood  of  man  with  all  the  promise  and  possibility 
and  duty  which  such  a  belief  implies,  can  for  a  moment  believe 
in  everlasting  punishment  in  some  realm  of  local  torture,  for 
his  brothers.  The  two  beliefs  cannot  co-exist,  however  much 
some  may  have  thought  they  could,  and  as  the  doctrine  of 
God's  fatherhood  and  man's  brotherhood  grows,  the  doctrine  of 
everlasting  punishment  declines. 

The  old  ecclesiastical  and  inhuman  view  of  punishment  over- 
shoots its  mark.  It  makes  the  sentence  out  of  proportion  to 
the  deed,  and  it  makes  it  possible  to  escape  the  sentence  by  too 
easy  a  process,  and  to  have  persons  believe  that  the  divine 
law  is  set  aside  and  even  the  consequences  of  sin  escaped.  The 
old  view  of  punishment  has  been  so  tenaciously  clung  to  be- 
cause it  is  so  favourable  to  a  life  of  meanness,  dishonesty,  and 
sin,  and  makes  heaven  purchasable  at  the  close  of  a  degraded 
career  at  so  cheap  a  rate.  And,  on  the  contrary,  our  higher 
view  of  punishment  still  slowly  finds  acceptance  because   it 


Is  Punishment  Everlasting?  197 

requires  a  life  measured  by  a  standard  so  just,  noble,  and  ad- 
vancing. The  common  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment  may 
justly  be  held  responsible  for  many  of  the  worst  evils  which 
have  afflicted  humanity.  It  has  kept  the  world  in  darkness,  it 
has  hindered  civilization,  it  has  aroused  the  worst  fanaticism 
and  cruelty,  and  it  has  been  the  secret  inspiration  of  the  worst 
religious  persecution.  Give  to  any  body  of  men  the  power  of 
holding  over  their  fellow-creatures  the  keys  of  the  future,  of 
opening  the  doors  to  eternal  wrath  and  torture,  or  to  eternal 
happiness,  as  they  deny  or  accept  certain  schemes  of  salvation 
or  dogmas  of  the  church,  and  you  give  to  them  the  most  dan- 
gerous power  man  can  wield.  And  it  will  be  wielded,  as  it  has 
been  wielded  by  the  church  for  centuries,  to  corrupt  and  de- 
grade humanity. 

The  mystery  of  the  eucharist,  instead  of  a  life  of  righteous- 
ness, drew  the  line  between  the  regenerated  and  the  lost;  and 
so  long  as  that  was  the  tribunal  there  was  no  hope  for  the 
world.  The  lost  were  lost  forever,  doomed  to  torture  forever, 
not  because  they  were  not  as  good  as  others,  hut  because  they 
could  not  accept  certain  doctrines  which  persons  nowise 
superior  to  themselves  had  made  the  arbitrary  condition  of  sal- 
vation. All  that  is  passing  out  of  the  better  religious  life 
of  the  closing  century.  The  future  takes  its  cast  from  the 
present :  rewards  and  retributions  depend  upon  the  real  spirit- 
ual character  which  has  been  struggled  after  or  attained  here. 
That  judgment  belongs  only  to  the  Infinite  to  pronounce. 
Such  is  the  complexity  of  human  nature,  in  its  hidden  tempta- 
tions, its  secret  aspirations  and  resistances,  that  it  is  not  for 
us  to  say  with  any  dogmatism  what  the  rewards  or  punish- 
ments shall  be.  We  only  know,  as  the  final  law  of  morals 
throughout  the  universe,  that  they  shall  be  in  accord  with  in- 
finite and  eternal  justice,  and  that  they  shall  be  according  to 
the  actual  quantity  of  righteousness  in  the  life.  Man  can 
draw  no  lines  which  shall  run  straight  across  humanity,  as  the 
lines  of  latitude  cross  with  undeviating  exactness  the  earth's 
surface,  and  divide  the  elect  from  the  lost.    You  have  noticed 


198      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

on  some  maps  the  isothermal  lines,  which  represent  the  places 
which  have  the  same  temperature.  What  crooked  lines  they 
are !  How  they  bend  and  sway  and  curve,  affected  by  an  ocean 
current  here,  or  a  mountain  range  there,  and  show  us  what 
strange  and  distant  places  have  the  same  genial  air.  So  any 
lines  which  shall  apportion  eternal  suffering  and  eternal  hap- 
piness must  wind  in  and  out  among  this  mass  of  humanity, 
more  mysteriously  than  the  isothermal  lines,  making  of  the 
same  company  lives  which  to  our  present  measuring  are  far 
asunder. 

The  old  theology  taught  us  that  the  least  sin  a  mortal  could 
commit  was  so  awful  in  its  nature  as  against  the  infinite  ma- 
jesty and  purity  of  God,  that  it  deserved  eternal  punishment. 
The  new  theology  would  teach  us  that  no  sin  a  finite  can  com- 
mit deserves  infinite  wrath  and  torture,  but  it  deserves  and  will 
receive  what  the  Infinite  knows  is  sufficient  punishment,  to  show 
to  the  sinner  the  evil  of  his  way  and  to  turn  him  to  virtue. 

Here,  then,  lies  the  idea  of  eternal  punishment  which  is  far 
truer  and  far  more  helpful  than  the  old  theology  has  taught. 
Not  that  the  Infinite  condemns  us  in  wrath  to  a  realm  of  tor- 
tures, for  the  universe  has  no  such  realm ;  nor  that  He  is  wear- 
ied of  our  failures,  or  disgusted  with  our  weaknesses,  or  pun- 
ishes us  in  anger;  but  that  every  transgression  bears  with  it  a 
divinely  appointed  punishment  which  is  everlasting  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  a  loss  of  opportunity,  a  loss  of  spiritual  power,  a  loss 
of  divine  companionship.  And  whatever  we  may  attain  to, 
that  loss  remains  forever,  just  as  consequences  are  everlasting. 
All  punishment  in  which  the  divine  law  bears  a  part  is  not  re- 
vengeful, but  remedial,  not  vindictive  but  corrective.  It  is 
precisely  the  punishment  necessary  to  preserve  the  order  of  the 
universe,  and  to  lead  man  to  learn  it,  to  obey  it,  and  to  rest 
in  it. 

When  we  come  to  such  a  view  of  God's  government  we  shall 
have  no  fears  of  eternal  torment,  nor  shall  we  ask  to  escape  any 
punishment  which  we  most  justly  have  deserved.  We  will  not 
ask  the  Infinite  to  withhold  the  corrective,  the  punishment,  He 


Is  Punishment  Everlasting?  199 

sees  is  necessary  to  heal  our  lives  and  turn  them  into  harmo- 
nious ways  of  forgiveness,  which  is  not  the  remission  of  the 
penalty,  and  of  peace  which  is  not  the  escape  from  just 
retribution.  Such  petitions  can  only  be  born  of  a  poor  con- 
ception of  this  universe  and  its  rules  or  of  the  good  of  human- 
ity. It  must  be  a  low  stage  of  the  moral  life  which  desires,  or 
of  the  intellectual  life  which  reasons,  that  it  is  possible  to  set 
aside  what  we  have  justly  deserved.  A  higher  and  truer  re- 
flection is,  I  have  transgressed  and  I  must  bear  the  infinitely 
just  punishment  for  my  wrong,  for  the  sake  of  justice  through- 
out the  universe.  Instead  of  praying  for  any  forgiveness  which 
takes  away  the  sins  and  the  punishment  we  most  justly  have 
deserved,  we  must  cry,  even  though  it  be  out  of  the  depths, 
"  Even  so.  Father,  for  so  it  seemeth  good  in  Thy  sight !  "  He 
who  once  turns  to  the  side  of  virtue  and  righteousness  finds 
all  the  laws  of  God  at  work  for  him  in  the  struggle,  but  they 
remit  nothing  of  the  punishment  which  is  justly  his  due.  And 
our  everlasting  punishment  is  the  loss  of  some  spiritual  power 
which  might  have  been  ours. 


The  Bearing  of  the  Teaching  of  Jesus  Christ 
on  Man's  Future  Destiny 


The  Bearing  of  the  Teaching  ofjesus 
Christ  on  Man's  Future  Destiny 

BY 

The  Reverend  CALEB  SCOTT,  D.D. 

IT  is  not  the  object  of  this  article  to  enquire  into  the  mean- 
ing of  the  sayings  attributed  to  Jesus  Christ  on  the  sub- 
ject of  eschatology  either  in  the  synoptists  or  the  4th  Gospel. 
The  difficulties  which  gather  around  many  of  those  sayings 
both  as  to  their  genuineness  and  interpretation  are  apparent 
from  the  diverse  views  which  have  been  taken  of  them  by 
scholars  equally  competent  and  devout.  A  recent  writer  (Dr. 
Stalker,  Contemporary  Review,  Jan.  7,  1900,  p.  130)  has  said 
"  It  is  more  than  possible  that  within  the  next  decade  the 
Gospels  may  be  issued  from  the  press  printed  in  all  the  colours 
of  the  rainbow  to  indicate  the  different  documents  by  which 
they  are  composed,  as  is  happening  to  the  Old  Testament  at 
the  present  hour.  The  materials  already  exist  in  abundance 
for  such  an  effort;  and  only  a  bold  hand  is  required  to  ap- 
propriate them."  Whether  such  an  achievement  will  be  ac- 
complished in  the  early  years  of  the  forthcoming  century  may 
well  be  questioned :  but  when  it  is,  the  colours  in  which  the 
eschatological  discourses  ascribed  to  our  Lord  are  printed  will 
testify  to  the  remoteness  of  much  of  the  matter  contained  in 
them  from  the  period  of  His  life  and  ministry. 

But  it  is  possible  to  approach  the  question  of  the  bearing  of 
what  Jesus  taught  on  man's  future  destiny  in  a  wholly 
different  way.  There  were  some  truths  which  were  so  in- 
corporated into  the  very  warp  and  woof  of  our  Lord's  life  and 
teaching  that  they  cannot  be  destroyed  or  altered  by  any  pro- 
cess of  destructive  criticism  to  which  the  records  we  have  in  the 
four  gospels  may  be  subjected.  Of  these  truths  the  most  im- 
portant i*-  he  revelation  He  gave  of  who  God  essentially  is. 
Our  Lora  spoke  of  this  revelation  as  being  the  object  of  His 

203 


204      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

life  and  ministry,  and  of  the  attainment  of  a  true  knowledge 
of  God  as  constituting  eternal  life.  Now  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  whole  of  the  revelation  which  Jesus  gave  of  God  is 
comprehended  in  the  Fatherhood  of  God.  The  Fatherhood 
of  God  is  as  Bishop  Moorhouse  entitles  it  ''  the  Master  thought 
of  Christ's  teaching  ",  "  the  secret  of  Jesus  "  or  as  Dr.  Clarke 
(in  his  outlines  of  Christian  theology,  p.  267)  puts  it  "  the  heart 
of  His  message  ".  It  occupies  a  place  in  His  life  and  teaching 
such  that  we  may  be  quite  satisfied  that  any  truth  which  cannot 
be  formulated  in  terms  of  the  Divine  Fatherhood  is  not  one  of 
the  truths  taught  by  Christ.  Especially  it  were  absurd  to 
assign  to  those  "  long  eschatological  discourses  which  read 
like  a  Christian  version  of  some  Jewish  Apocalypse  "  a  place  of 
importance  equal  to  that  which  we  give  to  Christ's  doctrine  of 
the  Fatherhood.  No  inference  from  those  discourses  as  to 
Christ's  teachings  can  be  compared  with  an  inference  which 
necessarily  follows  from  what  is  the  very  essence  of  our  Lord's 
teaching, — the  very  centre  of  the  whole. 

Anything  like  an  adequate  exposition  of  the  fact  that  this 
doctrine  of  the  Divine  Fatherhood  occupies  this  regnant  place 
is  impossible  within  the  limits  of  this  paper.  The  Church  of 
Christ  has  emphasized  the  physical  and  intellectual  attributes 
of  God :  but  our  Lord  emphasized  His  moral  and  spiritual  at- 
tributes. Commonly  God  has  been  thought  of  and  spoken 
of  as  a  King,  and  the  attributes  which  that  word  suggests  have 
been  made  most  prominent.  Never  once  did  Jesus  Christ 
speak  of  him  as  King.*  He  very  often  spoke  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God  but  invariably  represented  Himself  to  be  the  King  of 
that  Kingdom,  never  God.  In  the  addresses  of  the  Church  to 
God  no  phrase  is  more  common  than  "  Almighty  God  ".  Such 
a  phrase  is  never  once  ascribed  to  Jesus  in  the  Gospels.  That  in 
the  words  of  Paul,  i  Tim.  1:17,  "  God  is  the  King  Eternal, 
incorruptible,  invisible,  the  only  God"  is  indisputable,  but  the 

'  •  It  may  be  said  that  Matt.  5:  35,  where  Christ  says  of  Jerusalem,  "It 
is  the  city  of  the  Great  King  "is  an  exception.  But  surely  the  reference 
is  to  the  Messianic  King  Himself. 


Teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  on  Man's  Destiny    205 

truths  thus  set  forth  were  taken  for  granted,  not  accentuated 
by  our  Lord.  His  one  word  for  God  was  Father.  Apart  from 
the  words  ''  the  "  *'  my  ''  ''  your  "  the  only  attributes  He  added 
to  the  word  Father  were  ''  holy "  "  righteous ",  '*  Holy 
Father  ",  "  Righteous  Father  ". 

This  teaching  is  rendered  the  more  significant  by  the  fact 
that  as  has  been  well  said  "  its  material  or  constructive  prin- 
ciple is  the  consciousness  of  Christ."  We  have  in  what  He 
taught  about  the  divine  Fatherhood  the  ultimate  deliverance 
of  that  consciousness.  He  did  not  unfold  the  truth  in  reasoned 
discourse  or  in  well  sustained  argument  every  step  of  which 
compels  our  assent;  or  as  a  deduction  from  a  wide  survey  of 
the  works  of  God  looked  at  in  their  true  perspective  through 
the  atmosphere  of  holy  thought  and  devout  feeling;  or  as  a 
reproduction  of  the  divine  image  from  the  broken  reflections 
of  Him  on  which  different  ages  and  nations  have  looked.  But 
the  truth  as  He  taught  it  was  simply  a  transcript  of  His  own 
consciousness  of  God. 

The  prominent  place  which  the  truth  occupies  in  the  4th 
Gospel,  especially  in  the  discourses  in  the  14th  and  three  fol- 
lowing chapters  is  well  known.  In  those  chapters  the  word 
''Father  "  is  ascribed  to  Christ  some  fifty  times  whereas  even 
the  word  God  is  only  ascribed  to  Him  five  times.  It  is  being 
more  and  more  largely  conceded  that  we  have  in  the  words 
ascribed  to  Jesus  Christ  in  this  gospel  a  correct  transcript  of 
what  He  really  taught.  See  the  Hubbard  Lectures  by  Dr. 
Drummond,  Principal  of  Manchester  College,  Oxford,  entitled 
''  Via,  Veritas,  Vita,"  who  argues  that  the  "  profound  sayings  " 
in  the  chapters  in  question  are  a  true  expression  of  Christ's  doc- 
trine. In  the  synoptic  gospels  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  Father- 
hood is  hardly  less  prominent.  The  agreement  between  the 
three  and  the  one  in  this  respect  has  been  cited  as  a  proof  of  the 
"  identity  of  Christ's  character  "  as  taught  in  both.  No  words 
more  accurately  express  the  way  in  which  it  is  taught  in  the  first 
three  Gospels  than  the  words  of  Jesus  "  neither  knoweth  any 
man  save  the  Father  and  he  to  whomsoever  the  Son  will  reveal 


2o6      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

Him,"  Matt.  1 1  :  27.  It  may  be  said  without  any  fear  of  con- 
tradiction that  aHke  in  the  4th  Gospel  and  the  other  three  there 
is  no  truth  about  God  which  is  coordinated  with  His  Father- 
hood. He  pHed  men  with  considerations  drawn  from  this  doc- 
trine when  we  might  have  expected  He  would  have  made  His 
chief  appeal  to  other  thoughts  about  God.  To  secure  obedience 
to  the  laws  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  laid  down  in  the  sermon  on 
the  mount,  He  appealed  not  to  God's  omnipotence — omnis- 
cience and  omnipresence,  to  His  prerogative  as  the  searcher 
of  hearts,  but  to  manifold  aspects  of  the  relationship  which, 
as  the  Father,  God  sustains  to  men.  It  was  so  on  the  one  hand 
when  He  insisted  on  that  right  attitude  toward  God  which  is 
the  prime  condition  of  membership  of  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
in  the  directions  He  gave  about  fasting  and  prayer  and  about 
the  uselessness  and  folly  of  gnawing  anxiety  about  the  morrow. 
It  was  so  on  the  other  hand  when  He  insisted  on  that  right  at- 
titude towards  man  which  is  the  obverse  side  of  a  right  atti- 
tude toward  God,  as  exemplified  in  love  even  for  enemies  and 
persecutors,  generosity  in  judgment  and  action  and  conspic- 
uousness  in  good  deeds. 

Further  Christ's  teaching  about  God's  Fatherhood  assumes 
that  the  relation  it  sets  forth  is  not  metaphorical  but  absolute 
and  essential  and  consequently  universal.  The  Hebrew 
Psalmist  had  said,  "  Like  as  a  Father  pitieth  His  children  " 
making  human  Fatherhood  the  reality  and  divine  Fatherhood 
the  metaphor.  Christ's  teaching  was  the  reverse  of  this. 
"  Fatherhood  is  the  essence  of  God  "  says  Dr.  Fairbairn.  The 
archetype  of  fatherhood  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  human  re- 
lationship but  in  the  divine.  The  human  relationship  just  in 
so  far  as  it  approaches  its  ideal  shadows  forth  the  divine.  Paul 
simply  expressed  the  necessary  implication  in  our  Lord's  teach- 
ing about  God  when  he  wrote  "  There  is  one  God  and  Father 
of  all  ".  That  the  whole  of  that  multitude  who  listened  to  the 
sermon  on  the  mount  had  ''  become  the  Sons  of  God  "  through 
faith  and  love  is  an  impossible  supposition,  yet  there  is  not  the 
remotest  hint  either  there  or  elsewhere  that  when  Christ  pro- 


Teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  on  Man's  Destiny    207 

claimed  the  divine  Fatherhood  He  was  only  speaking  of  the 
relation  sustained  by  God  to  some  of  those  whom  He  ad- 
dressed. It  is  true  that  He  repudiated  the  claim  of  the  Phari- 
sees to  be  the  children  of  God  but  in  the  same  breath  He  re- 
pudiated their  claim  to  be  the  children  of  Abraham.  Mani- 
festly the  words  were  no  denial  of  the  Universal  Fatherhood 
of  God  but  a  strong  assertion  of  the  fact  that  by  their  conduct 
they  were  spiritually  and  morally  denying  their  Sonship. 
Sons  may  be  prodigal,  they  may  be  so  far  alienated  from  their 
Father's  house  and  home  that  only  through  the  love  of  God 
as  expressed  on  the  cross  can  they  be  won  back  to  their  true 
position,  and  become  in  heart  and  life  the  Sons  of  God, — ^but 
however  prolonged  and  stubborn  their  rebellion,  their  Father 
remains  their  Father  still.  His  relation  to  them  as  Father  is 
unchanged  and  unchangeable.  So  whilst  the  phrase  to  become 
the  Sons  of  God  often  used  in  the  New  Testament  is  easily 
understood  in  consistency  with  the  essential  and  universal 
Fatherhood  of  God,  such  a  phrase  as  God  becoming  our  Father 
is  never  found,  and  is  contradictory  to  such  teaching.  God 
always  has  been,  always  is,  and  always  will  be  our  Father.  He 
cannot  become  what  He  essentially  is. 

Our  contention  then  is  that  the  teaching  that  God  is  essen- 
tially the  Father,  and  the  Father  of  all  men  is  the  very  centre 
of  our  Lord's  teaching,  of  His  system  of  Doctrine.  Dis- 
sociating from  the  word  Father  all  that  is  sensuous  and  earthly, 
it  implies  something  much  more  than  that  God  is  the  Creator 
and  the  Supreme  Ruler  of  men.  It  implies  that  there  is  a 
community  of  nature  between  Him  and  us  that  He  communi- 
cates this  nature  to  us,  that  we  are  partakers  of  the  divine  na- 
ture. It  implies  further  that  the  whole  of  His  dealings  with 
men  are  compatible  with  the  assertion  ''  God  is  Love  ".  In 
idealized  human  Fatherhood  we  have  the  purest  love  we  know 
on  earth.  The  love  of  a  child  for  its  parent  has  in  it  necessarily 
an  element  of  selfishness.  So  has  the  rapture  of  married  love. 
But  the  love  of  a  Father  for  his  child  when  it  at  all  approaches 
its  ideal  is  simply  free  from  all  such  admixture.    A  true  human 


2o8      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

Father  is  ready  to  endure  any  suffering  which  may  be  needful 
for  the  highest  welfare  of  his  child.  Further  he  is  ready  to 
inflict  any  suffering  which  may  be  needful  for  that  welfare. 
Precisely  so  is  it  with  the  Father.  The  cross  is  the  age-long 
expression  of  the  one  truth.  All  the  pain  of  the  universe,  the 
pain  which  is  inseparable  from  sin  and  which  can  only  cease 
when  sin  ceases  is  the  expression  of  the  other  truth.  If  there 
is  any  utter  misconception  on  the  subject  of  God's  Father- 
hood, it  is  that  it  is  equivalent  to  weak  indulgence.  The  most 
terrible  message  of  the  Gospel  to  the  man  who  is  living  in 
determined  alienation  from  God  is  "  God  is  your  Father  ". 
The  language  of  that  man's  heart  is  depart  from  me,  I  desire 
not  the  knowledge  of  thy  ways.  The  language  of  the  Gospel 
is  God  is  your  Father.  He  will  never  leave  you  alone  in  your 
sin.  He  will  pursue  you  with  its  shame  and  remorse.  The 
worm  that  dieth  not  will  never  cease  to  gnaw ;  the  fire  which 
is  not  quenched  will  never  cease  to  burn  with  ever  fiercer  flame 
until  you  return  to  God.  The  "  dread  machinery  of  sin  and 
sorrow  "  which  is  grinding  always  and  everywhere  is  devised 
''  at  most  expenditure  of  pain  by  Him  who  devises  all  pain  ". 

**  to  evolve 
The  moral  qualities  of  man, 
To  make  him  love  in  turn  and  be  beloved, 
Creative  and  self-sacrificing  too, 
And  thus  eventually  Godlike." 

And  what  is  the  bearing  of  this  upon  the  final  destiny  of 
mankind?  The  assumption  that  the  destiny  of  every  man,  be 
he  never  so  much  handicapped  by  heredity  and  environment 
is  fixed  forever  by  the  use  he  makes  of  the  few  short  years  he 
spends  in  the  world,  the  npSyrov  TpevSo^  of  much  popular  theol- 
ogy— is  utterly  untenable.  God  is  the  Father,  and  whatever 
worlds  may  succeed  this  world,  however  the  conditions  of 
existence  may  vary  hereafter  He  always  will  be  the  Father  and 
as  such  will  always  deal  with  every  child  of  His.  This  we  may 
regard  as  an  indisputable  corollary,  God's  essential  Father- 
hood being  conceded.  The  doctrine  of  eternal  damnation  in  the 


Teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  on  Man's  Destiny    209 

mechanical  and  unethical  form  in  which  it  has  been  commonly 
held  cannot  possibly  live  together  with  that  of  the  Fatherhood. 
Of  it,  Dr.  Charles  (Jowett  Lectures  for  1898-9  on  Eschatology, 
p.  311)  well  says,  "  It  is  a  Judaistic  survival  of  a  grossly  im- 
moral character,  and  originated  in  Judaism  when  monotheism 
had  become  a  lifeless  dogma  .  .  .  and  when  a  handful  of 
the  pious  could  not  only  comfortably  believe  that  God  was  the 
God  of  the  Jew  alone,  and  only  of  a  very  few  of  these,  but  also 
could  believe  that  a  part  of  their  highest  bliss  in  the  next 
world  would  consist  in  witnessing  the  torment  of  the  damned  ". 
Equally  untenable  is  the  doctrine  of  conditional  immortality, 
if  God  is  the  Eternal  Father.  Both  these  doctrines  imply  '*  that 
the  intention  of  God  may  be  perpetually  frustrated.  In  the  one 
case  He  dismisses  the  rebellious  beyond  the  limits  of  His  grace ; 
in  the  other  weary  of  opposition  He  shatters  resistance  by 
simple  annihilation."  Christ's  doctrine  of  God's  Fatherhood 
is  utterly  irreconcilable  with  both  these  doctrines.  Neither  of 
them  can  be  held  unless  the  Fatherhood  is  denied.  It  assures 
us  that  as  long  as  any  child  of  His  is  alienated  from  Him  He 
will  never  cease  to  ply  that  child  with  all  the  resources  which 
omnipotence  places  at  the  disposal  of  His  love  in  order  to 
bring  him  to  himself, — that  true  self  which  in  all  his  wander- 
ings the  prodigal  never  lost.  It  matters  not  what  ages  may 
elapse.  It  matters  not  how  terrible  and  how  prolonged  the 
discipline  needful  to  effect  God's  purpose  may  be.  That  pur- 
pose can  never  throughout  the  ages  be  relinquished.  It  must 
be  pursued  until  it  be  accomplished.  The  Eternal  Father  must 
go  after  that  which  is  lost  until  He  find  it. 

But  it  may  be  said,  and  it  is  undoubtedly  true,  that  no  ex- 
ercise of  physical  omnipotence  can  crush  the  rebellion  of  the 
heart.  Human  freedom  is  such  that  whatever  God  may  do,  in 
whatever  form  He  may  bring  truth  to  bear  upon  His  child, 
however  vividly  He  may  show  him  that  it  is  an  evil  and  a 
bitter  thing  to  sin  against  Him,  however  the  divine  love  may 
use  the  resources  which  unlimited  power  and  knowledge  and 
wisdom  place  at  its  disposal  to  bring  the  prodigal  to  repent- 


2 1  o       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

ance,  all  may  be  unavailing.  Throughout  eternity  some  rebel- 
lious children  may  say  "  no  "  to  God  and  so  may  continue  rebel- 
lious still.  If  such  is  the  case  and  God  foresaw  it,  then  assur- 
edly such  rebellious  children  would  never  have  been  created  by 
Him.  That  the  Eternal  Father  should  foresee  that  one  child 
of  His  would  forever  rebel  and  in  consequence  be  forever  lost 
in  the  misery  of  alienation  from  Him,  and  should  still  create 
that  child  is  an  impossible  conception,  indeed  a  monstrous  sup- 
position. It  is  monstrous  if  we  think  of  ideal  human  Father- 
hood. It  is  infinitely  more  monstrous  when  we  think  of  Him 
"  from  whom  every  Fatherhood  in  heaven  and  on  earth  is 
named."     Eph.  3  :  15. 

But  it  may  be  contended  that  whether  or  not  divine  grace 
will  ultimately  overcome  sin  in  any  child  of  His  is  not  an 
object  of  the  divine  prescience;  that  as  Dr.  Martineau  puts  it 
(Study  of  Religion,  Vol.  2,  p.  279)  God  by  ''lending  us  a 
portion  of  His  causation  refrains  from  covering  all  with  His 
omniscience  ",  that  He  so  limits  His  own  ''  foresight  that  He 
cannot  read  all  volitions  that  are  to  be  ".  Now  if  this  is  the 
case  we  are  compelled  to  the  conclusion  pointed  out  by  Darner, 
when  he  writes  (System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  vol.  2,  p.  60, 
Eng.  Trans:)  "if  divine  foreknowledge  of  the  free  is  to  be 
absolutely  denied,  inasmuch  as  the  entire  accomplishment  of 
the  divine  counsel  is  still  conditioned  by  freedom,  there  will 
be  no  certainty  of  even  one  individual  being  led  by  his  spon- 
taneous decision  to  the  desired  end.  .  .  .  God  then  would 
have  created  the  world  at  a  mere  guess  ".  If  this  position  be 
taken  in  spite  of  the  tremendous  difficulties  in  which  we  are 
landed  by  it,  then  as  in  the  previous  alternative  we  are  forced 
back  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Eternal  Father  would  not  have 
created  man  at  all.  If  His  omniscience  could  not  beforehand 
tell  whether  a  single  child  of  His  would  remain  loyal  to  Him, 
then  surely  in  face  of  such  terrible  possibilities,  creation  were 
impossible. 

The  position  taken  in  this  paper  is  then  as  follows.  What 
was  the  direct  teaching  of  our  Lord  on  the  subject  of  eschatol- 


Teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  on  Man*s  Destiny    2 1 1 

ogy  it  is  extremely  difficult  if  not  impossible  to  decide.  But 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  eschatology  of  any  religion 
must  be  finally  decided  by  its  central  conception  of  God.  Now 
our  Lord  revealed  God  to  us  in  no  ambiguous  terms.  He 
taught  us  as  plainly  as  words  can  teach  that  God  in  His  unal- 
terable nature  is  our  Father.  This  was  the  centre  of  His  teach- 
ing,— its  master  thought,  the  pivot  on  which  it  all  revolved, 
— God's  Fatherhood,  not  metaphorical  but  essential  and  so  uni- 
versal. This  doctrine  occupies  a  place  in  our  Lord's  teaching 
such  that  we  may  be  perfectly  certain  that  no  doctrine  in- 
compatible with  it  is  a  doctrine  of  His.  Applied  to  the  future 
destiny  of  man  the  doctrine  forbids  the  supposition  that  by 
the  decrees  of  God  any  of  His  children  are  condemned  to  ever- 
lasting punishment;  it  is  equally  inconsistent  with  the  con- 
tention that  annihilation  will  be  the  ultimate  doom  of  any ;  and 
it  cannot  be  harmonized  with  the  supposition  that  "  God  will 
never  be  reluctant  though  man  may  forever  refuse  ",  as  Dr. 
Fairbairn  phrases  it.  The  only  conclusion  which  is  compatible 
with  the  regal  place  which  the  Fatherhood  occupies  in  the 
teaching  of  our  Lord  is  that  to  which  the  Apostle  Paul  comes 
when  he  writes,  "  God  hath  shut  up  all  unto  disobedience  that 
He  might  have  mercy  upon  all.  Romans  1 1 :  32.  "  It  was  the 
good  pleasure  of  the  Father  .  .  .  through  Him  (i.  e.  Jesus 
Christ)  to  reconcile  all  things  unto  Himself."  Colossians  1:19. 
20.  ''  That  at  the  name  of  Jesus  every  knee  should  bow  .  .  . 
and  that  every  tongue  should  confess  that  Jesus  Christ  is  Lord 
to  the  glory  of  God  the  Father."  Philippians  2  :  10,  11.  That 
which  underlies  the  assurance  that  ''  God  sent  His  Son  into 
the  world,  that  the  world  should  be  saved  through  Him,"  John 
3:  17;  that  which  is  plainly  stated  in  the  words  of  our  Lord 
"  And  I  if  I  be  lifted  up  from  the  earth  will  draw  all  men  unto 
mvself."      John  12  :  "^2. 


Universalism 


Universalism 

BY 

The  Reverend  I.    M.  ATWOOD,  D.D. 

UNIVERSALISM  is  primarily  a  theodicy.  It  is  a  theory 
that  seeks  the  explanation  of  present  discords  by  pred- 
icating future  harmony.  It  is  not  a  dogma  nor  a  science;  it 
is  a  faith  and  a  philosophy. 

All  persons  who  have  looked  into  the  human  situation  with 
any  degree  of  penetration  have  been  more  or  less  perplexed. 
The  race  exists  in  many  branches,  of  very  unequal  capacities 
and  possessions.  It  is  one  race,  palpably ;  but  of  widely  variant 
types.  Some  tribes  are  found  at  a  stage  not  much  above 
brutes.  Others  display  powers  and  attainments  that  warrant 
the  encomium  of  Shakespeare, — 

What  a  piece  of  work  is  man; 

How  noble  in  reason,  how  infinite  in  faculty! 

So  differently  conditioned  are  the  various  divisions  of  man- 
kind as  to  induce  wide  differences  of  occupation,  development, 
usages,  aims,  character.  In  all  branches,  at  whatever  stage  of 
evolution,  are  marked  family  and  individual  differences.  So 
soon  as  organization,  labor,  traffic,  government  begin,  the 
tendency  to  greater  inequalities,  to  tyranny  of  the  strong  over 
the  weak,  to  conflict  of  interests,  to  strife  and  misunderstand- 
ing, to  greed,  untruthfulness,  cruelty  and  crime,  appears.  The 
struggle  that  ensues  leads  to  every  form  of  excess  and  is 
marked  by  every  variety  of  evil.  True,  the  same  ordeal  brings 
out  virtue,  magnanimity,  self-sacrifice.  But  in  these  excellences 
all  do  not  share.  Heroes  and  saints  are  always  few  and  far  be- 
tween. Concede  progress,  admit  improvement  and  ameliora- 
tion ;  yet  the  fact  is  patent  and  undeniable,  that  hitherto  in  its 
history  mankind,  taken  as  a  whole,  or  in  the  great  represent- 
ative races,  has  made  a  record  which  no  enlightened  and 
humane  soul  can  contemplate  without  horror  and  shame. 

215 


2 1 6       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

Whatever  may  be  justly  said  for  the  restraining  and  re- 
fining influences  of  religion,  it  is  a  truth  too  abundantly  con- 
firmed by  all  history,  that  no  form  of  it,  not  even  the  highest, 
has  yet  been  able  to  do  more  than  modify  in  a  small  degree  the 
general  unsatisfactory  result.  No  religion  has  been  able  to  so 
curb  ambition,  allay  greed,  transform  desire,  infuse  a  spirit  of 
fraternity,  as  to  bring  any  considerable  number  of  any  tribe  or 
class  under  the  beneficent  rule  of  the  law  of  love.  I  mean  not 
to  exaggerate.  I  believe  students  of  this  phase  of  the  subject 
will  agree  that  I  have  made  a  statement  which  might  be  much 
enlarged  and  intensified. 

The  Christian  doctrine  of  human  immortality,  that  the 
spiritual  and  real  man  survives  the  event  of  death  and  in  an- 
other state  of  existence  continues  the  moral  ordeal  which  began 
here,  raises  all  the  questions  concerning  unequal  allotment  and 
diversity  of  character  into  what  may  be  termed  acute  signifi- 
cance. Do  matters  improve  in  the  new  state,  do  they  go  on 
as  before,  do  they  get  worse?  The  circumstance  that  an  af- 
firmative is  given  to  each  of  these  inquiries  by  as  many  schools 
of  theorists,  does  not  tend  to  clarify  mystery.  It  is  seen  by 
all,  that  if  the  earthly  scene  is  initial  to  another,  that  fact  must 
reflect  an  explanatory  light  on  man's  beginning  and  may 
possibly  illuminate  the  darkness  of  his  days  that  are  so  few  and 
so  full  of  evil. 

Thoughtful  men  and  women  have  been  asking  in  every  age, 
what  shall  we  say  to  these  things?  Is  there  any  rational  and 
satisfactory  solution  of  the  human  problem  ?  Is  it  Providence 
or  Fate? 

Various  replies  have  been  framed,  from  Plato's  time  to  our 
own.  None  of  them,  I  suspect,  have  been  entirely  satisfactory, 
even  to  those  who  formulated  them.  Rather  than  give  up  in 
confessed  impotence  or  in  blank  despair,  they  have  tried  to  see 
a  little  way  into,  if  they  could  not  see  through,  the  intricate 
maze.  Those  who  have  felt  constrained  to  say  that  there  is  no 
God,  and  those  who  have  concluded  that  there  is  no  plan  and 


Universalism  217 

hence  no  solution,  are  practically  in  the  same  case,  and  need 
not  be  further  considered. 

Those  who  content  themselves  with  saying  that  God  chose 
some  men  and  angels  for  a  good  destiny,  to  which  He  will 
bring  them,  and  other  men  and  angels  for  a  bad  destiny,  to 
which  He  will  leave  them,  do  not  pretend,  I  believe,  to  be 
satisfied  to  have  it  so.  They  simply  affirm  that  it  is  so,  and 
there  rest. 

Those  who  say  the  choice  lies  not  with  God  but  with  men, 
and  adopt  a  sliding  scale  of  possibilities,  running  all  the  way 
from  the  salvation  of  a  tenth  to  that  of  nine-tenths  of  the  human 
race,  would,  they  assure  us,  be  glad  to  tell  a  more  cheerful 
story,  if  facts  warranted.  Some  of  them  admit  with  entire 
frankness  the  dark  and  awful  alternatives  to  which  their  view 
forecloses  them.  Others  contrive  to  be  tolerably  comfortable 
by  persuading  themselves  that  the  issue  which  their  theory 
involves  is,  on  the  whole,  the  best  which  "  the  system  of 
things  "  makes  possible.  As  matter  of  fact,  they  say,  men  are 
to  determine  their  destiny;  it  cannot  be  otherwise.  Let  them 
know  the  worst  and  prepare  for  it. 

It  is  really  a  variety  of  the  view  just  stated  which  supposes 
that  a  portion  of  mankind, — how  large  can  only  be  conjec- 
tured, but  vast  in  any  event, — will  fail  to  maintain  themselves 
in  existence  through  failing  to  cultivate  the  germ  of  spiritual 
life.  Here,  as  before,  it  is  a  disastrous  choice  that  at  length 
closes  opportunity  and  finally  ruins  the  soul.  Some  relief  is 
obtained,  no  doubt,  from  the  appalling  thought  of  spirits  for- 
ever kept  in  being  only  to  be  forever  wretched,  by  the  hypothesis 
of  ultimate  extinction  or  of  the  sudden  termination  of  life  for 
the  unfortunates.  But  in  both  cases  the  insoluble  problem  is,  to 
reconcile  an  outcome  so  undesirable,  and  as  between  the  pre- 
served and  the  perished,  so  unequal,  with  wisdom  and  goodness. 

Now  Universalism  is  believed,  by  those  who  prefer  it,  to  be 
not  only  a  much  better  view  but  a  real  and  rational  solution  of 
the  dark  problem.     Not  by  ignoring  the  perplexities  but  by 


21 8       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

recognizing  them  in  all  their  solemn  significance  and  yet  find- 
ing a  way  out  into  light,  is  relief  brought  to  the  perturbed 
mind.  This  is  what  the  Universalist  theory  accomplishes.  It 
makes  room  for  all  the  facts,  takes  the  full  measure  of  the  ap- 
parently irreconcilable  antinomies,  gives  free  play  to  the  tre- 
mendous alternatives  of  human  choice  and  to  the  terrific  force 
of  retribution,  yet  sees  through  all,  the  natural  superiority  of 
truth  and  right  and  goodness,  and  after  all,  a  triumphant,  har- 
monized, unmutilated  humanity. 

Evidently  this  is  what  all  enquirers  have  sought  after. 
Whether  conscious  of  it  or  not,  they  have  wished  for  an  issue 
of  the  human  scene  on  which  no  shadow  rests.  Argue  with 
ourselves  as  we  will,  multiply  words  as  much  as  we  please, 
the  naked,  solemn  truth  is,  that  no  hypothesis  which  sacrifices 
some  to  save  others,  or  which  bluntly  ascribes  to  the  Divine 
pleasure  what  satisfies  no  good  man;  or  which  allows  a 
reasoned  and  ordered  universe  to  end  in  catastrophe,  ever  was 
or  will  be  acceptable  to  the  unperverted  intelligence.  It  leaves 
the  difficulty  larger  than  it  found  it.  The  problem  is  not 
solved. 

But  if  we  are  permitted  to  believe  in  a  program  of  progress, 
in  a  purpose  and  plans  that  from  seeming  ill  are  still  educing 
good,  in  a  universe  so  solidly  based  on  beneficence  that  the 
better  thought  and  course  are  sure  of  final  advantage,  no 
present  darkness  can  shake  our  confidence  in  the  coming  dawn. 
And  if  this  program  be  conceived  of  as  including  in  its  one  far 
off,  divine  event,  the  victory  of  every  human  spirit  over  its  foes 
and  its  bonds,  and  its  final  establishment  in  rectitude,  our  prob- 
lem is  solved;    no  ireducible  residuum  remains. 

So  far,  I  suppose,  all  will  go  with  me.  They  will  admit  that 
this  issue  would  be  desirable.  Said  the  Duke  of  Argyle  to 
Erskine  of  Linlathen,  ''  No  objection  can  be  urged  to  your 
view  of  final  universal  salvation,  except  that  there  are  not  suffi- 
cient grounds  for  believing  it.  In  itself  it  is  most  fascinating. 
Would  to  God  it  were  so !  "  The  late  Col.  Robert  Ingersoll  is 
on  record  to  the  same  effect.     "  I  have  nothing  against  Uni- 


Universalism  2 1 9 

versalism,"  said  he:  *'  if  I  could  believe  it  I  should  be  happy." 
Among  the  many  that  I  have  met  who  feel  themselves  called 
on  to  oppose  this  theory  of  religion,  I  have  never  found  one 
who  would  not  concede  that  the  end  it  predicts  is  desirable. 
Most  of  those  who  reject  it  admit  that  it  escapes  all  the  more 
serious  difficulties  with  which  Christian  theology  is  encum- 
bered. 

Is  Universalism,  then,  believable?  Is  it  probable?  Is  it 
true  ?  The  scope  of  this  article  does  not  permit  me  to  go  into 
this  inquiry  so  thoroughly  as  I  could  wish.  A  sketch  of  the 
argument  must  suffice. 

The  fact  that  the  Universalist  view  clears  up  the  difficul- 
ties and  vindicates  the  ways  of  God  to  man,  is  a  powerful 
presumption  of  its  truth.  What  more  conclusive  affirmative 
can  be  made  for  any  hypothesis  ? 

If  I  were  asked  to  state  in  the  shortest  phrase,  why  I  am  a 
Universalist  I  should  put  it  this  way :  I  am  a  Universalist  be- 
cause God  is.  As  I  understand  Him,  God  has  made  man,  any 
man  and  every  man,  to  be  like  Himself.  He  has  not  only  made 
man  capable  of  that,  but  to  be  that.  He  has  not  made  one  soul 
to  be  vile  and  filthy  and  fiendlike.  If  He  has  made  any  soul 
to  be  bad  there  is  small  use  of  that  soul's  trying  to  be  good. 
But  He  has  not  made  any  soul  to  be  bad.  God  does  not  de- 
light in  badness,  but  in  goodness.  And  that  shows  God  to  be  a 
Universalist.  He  made  His  children  to  glorify  Him  and  enjoy 
Him  forever.  He  wishes  them  to  do  so  and  purposes  that  they 
shall  do  so;  and  there  are  no  exceptions.  When,  therefore,  I 
range  myself  along  side  God  and  seek  what  He  seeks  I  be- 
come a  Universalist. 

It  has  been  said,  in  every  human  soul  is  a  longing  for  moral 
perfection.  I  am  not  sure  that  we  are  authorized  to  affirm 
this.  In  many  souls  there  is  such  a  longing:  there  may  be  in 
every  soul.  But  it  is  a  larger  assumption  than  I  feel  warranted 
in  making.  We  may,  I  think,  assume  that  every  soul  is  con- 
scious of  a  desire  to  be  better  and  worthier  than  it  is.  If  that 
soul  should  take  one  step  towards  the  attainment  of  its  desire  it 


220      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

would  be  still  less  satisfied  with  itself  and  still  more  desirous 
of  attaining  a  better  estate.  To  this  law  of  advance  there  is  no 
limit  and  in  this  race  there  is  no  halting  place.  The  meaning 
of  such  a  phenomenon  must  be  that  the  human  soul  has  in  itself 
the  evidence  of  the  end  for  which  it  is  made.  And  since  each 
soul  has  it,  the  prophecy  is  unmistakable.  Its  destiny  is  to  ally 
itself  with  its  Author  and  to  cooperate  with  Him  in  fulfilling 
a  great  end  of  His  creation. 

The  spirit  of  man  is  never  content  nor  at  peace  until  it  is  con- 
scious of  walking  in  the  path  ordained  for  it.  The  disturbance 
that  ensues,  and  inevitably,  from  a  wrong  course  is  both  a 
warning  and  a  prophecy.  It  means  that  the  soul  was  made  for 
a  good  use  and  a  good  end,  and  that  the  whole  moral  order  is 
against  any  other  use  and  end. 

The  torpor  that  follows  repeated  sinning,  the  death  in  tres- 
passes and  in  sin,  is  itself  proof  that  the  soul  cannot  abide  in 
that  awful  trance.  For  if  the  death  were  literal  and  absolute 
there  would  be  no  sense  of  guilt,  no  possibility  of  condemna- 
tion, no  ability  to  sin.  So  long  as  we  can  sin,  we  can  repent. 
This  is  the  exact  meaning  of  a  Saviour.  He  is  a  Saviour  only 
because  there  are  sinners.  And  sinners  exist  not  to  be 
damned:  they  are  damned  already.  They  exist  to  be  saved. 
That  there  were  sinners,  and  sinners  of  a  deeply  depraved 
type,  presented  no  obstacle  to  the  mission  of  Jesus.  He  came 
to  seek  and  to  save  these  very  classes.  That  there  are  sinners 
now,  and  sinners  of  an  inveterate  and  hopeless  grade,  does  not 
militate  against  the  Universalist  conclusion.  If  it  did,  it  would 
make  Christianity  impracticable  and  the  mission  of  Jesus 
Quixotic. 

No  one  can  deny  the  final  triumph  of  good  over  evil  in  the 
case  of  all  souls  unless  he  is  willing  to  dispute  human  im- 
mortality or  to  abrogate  the  moral  order.  If  souls  persist  in 
conscious  existence  and  remain  subjects  of  the  moral  realm 
no  one  is  authorized  to  say  that  some  of  them  will  never  attain 
the  end  for  which  they  are  created.    For  to  do  so  he  must  take 


Universalism  221 

his  stand  at  the  conclusion  of  the  trial,  when  the  ordeal  is 
finished  and  the  books  are  closed.  If  it  be  said,  that  far  off  era 
is  not  open  to  the  Universalist  for  prediction,  it  must  be  re- 
plied that  it  is  still  less  open  to  any  one  to  dispute  his  pre- 
diction. Especially  must  we  say  this  when  we  remember  that 
the  only  glimpse  vouchsafed  us  of  the  final  scene  in  the  human 
drama,  intimates  unclouded  victory!  Then  cometh  the  end, 
when  He  shall  deliver  up  the  Kingdom  to  God,  even  the  Father; 
zvhen  He  shall  have  abolished  all  rule  and  all  authority  and 
power.  For  He  must  reign  till  He  hath  put  all  enemies  under 
His  feet.  The  last  enemy  that  shall  be  destroyed  is  death. 
That  the  conquest  referred  to  is  moral  and  not  physical  and  in- 
volves the  loving  obedience  of  the  subjects,  is  shown  by  the 
fact,  that  in  the  consummation  "  the  Son  also  Himself  shall  be 
subject  unto  Him  that  did  put  all  things  under  him,  that  God 
may  be  all  in  all." 

I  am  persuaded  that  the  destiny  of  man,  including  the  after- 
death  life,  hinges  on  his  natural  relation  to  God.  Origin  con- 
cludes destiny.  If  man  is  a  child  of  God,  in  such  sense  that  he 
shares  the  spiritual  nature  of  God,  that  fact  insures  his  survival 
after  the  death  of  his  body.  If  he  is  not  thus  naturally  and 
spiritually  related  to  God,  no  weight  of  probabilities,  no  argu- 
ments from  analogy,  and  no  supposed  prophecy  of  Scripture 
can  supply  a  solid  base  for  the  doctrine  of  human  immortality. 
The  idea  that  any  man,  by  any  kind  of  favour,  can  confer  on 
himself  a  possession  so  infinitely  transcending  his  natural  en- 
dowment as  an  endless  life  transcends  mortal  life,  appears  to 
me  an  unfounded  fancy. 

The  logic  of  these  facts  runs  irresistibly,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
to  a  foregone  conclusion.  If  a  man  is  really  the  child  of  God,  if 
it  is  more  than  a  flourish  of  mocking  rhetoric  for  us  to  say, 
*'  Our  Father,"  we  are  authorized  to  believe  that  the  child  will 
come  to  his  intended  and  proper  estate  in  the  divine  family.  I 
feel  strong  here,  and  willing  to  stake  all,  for  myself  and  for 
mankind,  on  the  natural  relation  which  we  sustain  to  the  Au- 


2  22       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

thor  of  our  being.  If  we  do  not  belong  to  Him  we  can  expect 
no  Spiritual  inheritance:  if  we  do  belong  to  Him,  who  can 
pluck  us  out  of  His  hand? 


The  Universalist  denomination  dates  from  the  preaching  of 
the  Rev.  John  Murray,  though  there  were  other  preachers  of 
Universalism  in  various  parts  of  the  country  before  him.  Mr. 
Murray  came  to  the  United  States  in  1770,  from  London, 
where  he  had  been  a  disciple  of  James  Relly.  He  itinerated 
through  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania  and  Massachusetts,  finally 
establishing  a  church  at  Gloucester  in  the  latter  State,  and  also 
in  Boston,  for  each  of  which  he  served  some  years  as  minister. 

For  some  time  after  Mr.  Murray  founded  the  denomination 
it  was  supposed  that  Universalism  was  a  modern  heresy;  and 
its  speedy  downfall  and  disappearance  were  predicted  on  the 
ground  that  it  had  no  historic  root.  But  the  researches  of  more 
recent  years  have  shown  that  explicit  Universalism  was  taught 
in  the  Church  as  early  as  the  Third  Century,  and  implicit 
Universalism  much  earlier.  The  exact  question  of  the  destiny 
of  all  men  did  not  come  up  among  Christians  at  the  very  be- 
ginning. But  in  the  course  of  their  missionary  labours  and 
their  fruitful  discussions  it  was  bound  to  come  to  the  surface 
ere  long.  We  know  that  it  did,  and  that  for  three  hundred 
years  and  more  it  reckoned  among  its  advocates  the  greatest 
names  in  the  schools  and  pulpits  of  Christendom.  The  facts 
in  relation  to  this  interesting  historic  question  are  not  now 
disputed  anywhere  and  may  be  ascertained  as  readily  from 
other  sources  as  from  Universalist  writers.  I  may  refer  the 
reader,  however,  for  full  information  on  this  point,  to  The 
Ancient  History  of  Universalism,  by  President  Hosea  Ballou; 
to  Dr.  Edward  Beecher's  History  of  the  Doctrine  of  Retribu- 
tion; and  particularly  to  a  work  issued  within  a  year,  by  the 
Rev.  J.  W.  Hanson,  D.D.,  entitled,  Universalism  in  the  First 
Five  Hundred  Years  of  the  Christian  Church. 


Universalism  223 

The  means  by  which  its  condemnation  was  procured  and  by 
which  the  names  and  memories  of  its  great  advocates  were 
attempted  to  be  dishonoured,  are  the  same  by  which  so  many 
of  the  fairest  pages  of  Christian  history  have  been  stained. 

But  Clement  and  Origen  and  Didymus  and  Diodorus,  and 
the  Gregories  and  Titus  and  Theodore  and  Jerome  and 
Chrysostom,  with  other  Fathers  of  great  learning  and  piety, 
are  none  the  less  the  treasures  of  the  Church. 

From  very  small  beginnings  in  the  last  years  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  and  the  first  of  the  nineteenth,  the  Universalist 
denomination  in  America  made  steady  but  slow  headway.  The 
denominations  already  in  existence  were  pretty  unanimous  in 
their  hostility  to  the  new  sect  and  often  very  violent  in  their 
methods  of  opposition.  In  1870,  after  a  hundred  years  of 
varying  fortune  and  incessant  struggle,  a  compact  and  quite 
elaborate  organization  was  effected.  The  Secretary  of  the 
General  Convention,  Rev.  Dr.  Demarest,  a  high  authority  on 
the  statistics  of  the  Universalist  denomination,  said  in  1899, 
that  it  was  not  until  1884  that,  ''  we  were  able  to  present  a 
reasonably  accurate  table  of  our  statistics.  Comparing  those 
of  fifteen  years  ago  with  the  present  year  we  find : 

1884  1899               Increase. 

Number  of  Parishes 875  i  ,003  14    5-8  per  cent. 

Families 35,79i  47»4ii  33  1-3  per  cent. 

'*        Church  Members 31,709  52,i77  64  1-2  per  cent. 

"        S.  S.  Pupils    50,069  59*^79  18  1-5  per  cent. 

Parish  Prop.  (Less  Debts) $6,724,079  $9,623,762  43  1-8  per  cent. 

Expenses— Contributions  .      853,490  1,105,869  29  i-io  per  cent. 

This  table  shows  that  while  the  Universalist  Church  in 
America  is  still  one  of  the  small  denominations,  and  while  its 
rate  of  increase  has  been  slow,  it  has  steadily  gained  in  all  the 
elements  of  power  that  are  capable  of  tabulation.  Many  at- 
tempts have  been  made  to  furnish  the  reason  or  reasons  why 
denominations  like  the  Universalist  and  Unitarian,  which  cer- 
tainly are  in  accord  with  the  progress  of  religious  opinion  in  the 
whole  Christian  world  and  are  not  behind  others  in  the  quality 


224      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

and  capacity  of  their  ministerial  force,  should,  in  the  comparison, 
make  so  slow  progress.  There  are  without  doubt,  many  minor 
reasons;  but  the  principal  cause  of  the  diminished  rate  of  in- 
crease in  these  bodies  is,  beyond  a  question,  the  growth  of 
Universalist  and  Unitarian  sentiment  in  evangelical  commun- 
ions and  a  marked  disposition  in  those  churches  to  make  Univer- 
salists  and  Unitarians  comfortable  in  their  fellowship.  It  thus 
comes  to  pass  that  the  more  successful  Universalism  is  in 
winning  assent  to  its  propositions  the  less  opportunity  does  it 
enjoy  to  secure  denominational  adherents.  The  more  con- 
versions the  fewer  followers ! 

The  Universalist  Church  has  organizations  in  thirty-one 
States,  in  the  Provinces  of  Ontario  and  Quebec  and  Nova 
Scotia  and  in  Japan.  Two  or  three  churches  of  that  name  in 
Scotland  hold  relations  with  the  Universalist  General  Conven- 
tion. Four  colleges,  three  theological  seminaries,  five  acad- 
emies, have  been  founded  and  are  maintained  by  the  denomina- 
tion; besides  a  theological  school  and  two  other  schools  in 
Japan,  and  a  recently  started  ''  Industrial  College  "  in  Alabama. 
Two  missions,  with  schools  attached,  are  supported  among  the 
coloured  people  in  Norfolk  and  in  Suffolk, Va. 

The  legislative  bodies  of  the  Universalist  church  are  the 
conventions.  State  and  General.  The  former  are  composed 
of  delegates  from  the  parishes  in  any  State;  the  latter  of  dele- 
gates from  the  various  State  conventions.  The  General  Con- 
vention is  the  highest  tribunal.  It  meets  once  in  two  years. 
The  State  conventions  meet  once  in  each  year.  At  the  recent 
session  of  the  General  Convention  in  Boston,  Mass.,  the  basis 
of  representation  in  that  body  was  enlarged  so  that  delegations 
are  now  twice  as  numerous  as  formerly.  In  the  interval  be- 
tween sessions  the  affairs  of  the  General  Body  are  managed 
by  a  Board  of  eleven  trustees,  and  the  executive  officers  are  a 
General  Secretary,  a  General  Missionary,  a  Financial  Sec- 
retary and  a  General  Superintendent. 

Since  the  reorganization  of  the  body  in  1870  nearly  all  the 
funds  possessed  by  the  denomination  have  been  accumulated. 


Universalism  225 

The  General  Convention  now  has  funds  amounting  to  $314,- 
523;  the  Woman's  Centennary  Association  a  fund  of  $14,393; 
the  Woman's  Missionary  Society  a  fund  of  $6,890;  the 
Woman's  AlHance  a  fund  of  $791 ;  The  Woman's  Association 
of  IlHnois  $1,500;  the  UniversaHst  Sabbath  School  Union 
$11,201;  the  various  State  conventions  funds  aggregating 
$414,202;— a  grand  total  of  $783,555- 

The  historic  Profession  of  Belief,  adopted  at  the  session  of 
the  General  Convention  in  Winchester,  N.  H.  in  1803  contains 
three  articles  as  follows : 

Article  I.  We  believe  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments  contain  a  revelation  of  the  character  of 
God  and  of  the  duty,  interest  and  destination  of  man- 
kind. 

Article  11.  We  believe  that  there  is  one  God,  whose  nature 
is  Love,  revealed  in  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by  one  Holy  Spirit 
of  Grace,  who  will  finally  restore  the  whole  family  of  mankind 
to  holiness  and  happiness. 

Article  HL  We  believe  that  holiness  and  true  happiness  are 
inseparably  connected,  and  that  believers  ought  to  be  careful 
to  maintain  order  and  practise  good  works;  for  these  things 
are  good  and  profitable  unto  men. 

By  the  action  of  the  two  last  biennial  sessions  another  state- 
ment has  been  substituted  for  the  Winchester  Profession  as 
the  authoritative  one  of  the  Church — it  runs  thus : 

''  The  conditions  of  fellowship  in  this  Convention  shall  be  as 
follows : — 

"  First.  The  acceptance  of  the  principles  of  the  UniversaHst 
faith,  to  wit.  The  Universal  Fatherhood  of  God ;  The  Spiritual 
authority  and  leadership  of  His  Son  Jesus  Christ;  The  Trust- 
worthiness of  the  Bible  as  containing  a  revelation  from  God; 
The  certainty  of  just  retribution  for  sin ;  the  final  harmony  of 
all  souls  with  God.  The  Winchester  Profession  is  commended 
as  containing  these  principles,  but  neither  this  nor  any  other 
form  of  words  is  required  as  a  condition  of  fellowship,  pro- 
vided always  that  the  principles  above  stated  be  professed. 


226      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

"  Second.  The  acknowledgment  of  the  authority  of  the  Gen- 
eral Convention  and  assent  to  its  laws." 

The  Women's  Auxiliary  societies,  of  which  there  are  several, 
and  one  with  organizations  in  nearly  every  State,  are  an  integral 
and  potent  part  of  the  forces  of  the  denomination.  And  the 
National  organization  of  Young  People's  Christian  Unions, 
with  a  total  membership  of  15,000,  enrolls  a  body  of  young 
men  and  women  who,  for  intelligence,  capacity  and  high  re- 
ligious purpose,  are  not  excelled  by  any  similar  body  in  any 
Church. 

What  is  here  set  forth  may  serve  to  show,  that  the  Univer- 
salist  denomination  has  a  definite  theological  and  religious 
basis,  a  compact  and  complete  organization,  missionary  en- 
terprises and  means  of  church  extension,  institutions  of  learn- 
ing, a  considerable  literature,  a  liberal  provision  of  permanent 
funds,  a  progressive  and  popular  policy  of  administration,  a 
record  of  growth  of  which  it  has  no  need  to  feel  ashamed,  and 
a  prospect  of  usefulness  and  so  of  permanence  calculated  to 
stir  the  enthusiasm  and  enlist  the  active  energies  of  its  ad- 
herents. It  is  in  no  invidious  sense  a  competitor  for  place 
among  the  Christian  forces  of  the  times.  It  is  rather  in  a 
large  and  true  sense  a  co-worker  with  all  other  churches  in  the 
great  business  of  emancipating  the  minds  of  men  from  error  and 
establishing  their  characters  in  righteousness  and  love.  It 
would  be  glad  to  maintain  relations  of  fraternity  and  fellow- 
ship with  all  other  followers  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 


Universalism 


Universalism 

BY 

The  Reverend  DAVID  N.  BEACH,  D.D. 

AT  the  Universalist  General  Convention  of  1899,  held  in 
Boston,  one  of  the  speakers  of  "  Interdenominated  Even- 
ing," October  23d,  was  the  Rev.  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott.  He  un- 
dertook to  say  '*  Why  liberal  CongregationaHsts  are  not  Uni- 
versalists."  "  I  think  it  very  clear/'  he  said,  "  that  modern 
Congregationalism  does  not  accept  the  doctrine  of  eternal  pun- 
ishment as  it  was  preached  by  Jonathan  Edwards  or  even  by 
Charles  G.  Finney.  It  may  still  be  entertained  as  a  scholastic 
theory  by  a  few  minds,  it  may  be  occasionally  preached  in  iso- 
lated pulpits,  but  it  is  not  found  to  any  extent  in  the  ministry  of 
even  the  more  conservative  pulpits  of  to-day,  and  certainly  not 
in  the  pulpits  of  liberal  CongregationaHsts.  Personally  I  ab- 
solutely disown  it.'*  Dr.  Abbott's  central  reason  assigned  is 
the  freedom  of  the  will.  He  maintains  that  life  is  approach- 
able by  the  study  of  phenomena  from  without  or  by  the  inter- 
rogation of  consciousness  from  within.  If  we  approach  it  by 
a  study  of  the  phenomena  without  we  come  to  the  irresistible 
conclusion  that  not  only  physical  nature  but  human  nature  is 
under  great  Divine  Laws  and  under  a  great  Divine  Lawgiver. 
But  we  may  also  interrogate  alike  from  within,  and  if  we  do, 
the  first  and  fundamental  fact  that  confronts  us  is  the  fact  of 
our  own  freedom.  We  come  back  to  Samuel  Johnson's  utter- 
ance "  *  All  argument  is  against  the  freedom  of  the  will.  We 
know  we  are  free  and  that's  the  end  of  it.'  "  "  By  omnipotence 
in  the  moral  realm,"  he  continues,  *'  I  mean  that  God  can  do 
all  things  in  that  realm  consistent  with  preserving  the  freedom 
of  the  free  moral  agent  whom  He  is  making  in  His  own  image, 
— so  making  him  that  he  may  be  righteous  as  God  is  righteous 
by  choosing  the  right  end  and  eschewing  the  evil  under  no 
compulsion.  If  it  were  possible  for  God  to  hypnotize  the  race 
so  that  under  His  hypnotic  influence  every  man  should  choose 

229 


230      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

his  crown  of  glory,  I  would  not  have  him  do  it,  for  then  all  the 
virtue  would  be  in  the  hypnotizer  and  not  in  the  hypnotized, 
and  the  glory  of  humanity  is  this  that  when  the  last  man  is 
completed  he  will  stand  in  his  moral  nature  independent,  hold- 
ing the  helm  of  his  own  destiny  and  directing  his  own  course." 

*'  Sometimes  "  he  proceeds  to  illustrate  ''  you  see  a  child 
sitting  on  the  seat  by  his  father  driving  the  span,  the  father 
holds  the  reins  in  front  of  the  child,  the  boy  thinks  he  is  guid- 
ing the  horses,  but  he  is  not.  So  some  believe  in  the  freedom  of 
the  will.  Sometimes  you  will  see  that  your  Father  is  allowing 
the  boy  to  hold  the  reins  but  sitting  by  his  side  ready  to  snatch 
them  the  moment  any  peril  arises.  So  other  men  believe  in  the 
freedom  of  the  will." 

Giving  his  own  point  of  view,  he  continues  *'  The  most 
awful  and  the  most  splendid  fact  in  human  life  to  me  is  this 
that  God  puts  the  reins  of  my  destiny  into  my  own  hands  and 
neither  holds  the  reins  before  me  nor  behind  me." 

Then  he  proceeds  *'  So  preaching  the  illimitable  love  and 
the  infinite  grace  of  God  our  Saviour  unto  men,  repudiating 
all  particularism  in  theology,  repudiating  the  notion  that  the 
grace  of  God  ends  for  any  man  at  death,  believing  with  all  my 
heart  that  all  the  resources  of  God's  love  and  life  and  power 
are  pledged  to  the  restoration  of  all  men  to  righteousness, 
holiness,  and  happiness,  still  my  last  message  to  the  men  and 
women  to  whom  I  speak  this,  I  set  before  you  life  and  death, 
therefore  choose  life  that  thou  and  thy  seed  may  live." 

Giving  his  judgment  of  the  Congregational  body  in  the 
United  States  he  summarizes :  "  Any  man  who  believes  that 
the  God's  law  is  inviolable,  that  punishment  follows  its  infrac- 
tion, that  remedy  follows  repentance  and  never  follows  or  can 
follow  without  repentance,  and  that  this  remedy  is  revealed  in 
and  through  Jesus  Christ  will  receive  ordination  though  he 
believe  as  some  Congregationalists  do  that  some  men  will 
never  repent  and  will  live  in  sin  and  misery  forever,  or  as  some 
other  Congregationalists  do  that  some  men  will  never  repent 
and  will  therefore  cease  to  exist,  or  as  still  other  Congrega- 


Universalism  231 

tionalists  do,  that  under  the  persuasions  of  Almighty  God  all 
men  will  at  last  repent  and  through  the  door  of  repentance  be 
brought  back  to  holiness  and  happiness  and  God,  or,  as  I  think 
the  majority  of  Congregationalists  do  to-day,  decline  to  be 
dogmatic  on  that  question  altogether.  The  Congregational 
Church,  thank  God,  is  large  enough  for  them  all," 

The  purpose  of  this  article  is  not  to  argue  the  case,  nor  to 
give  individual  opinion,  but  to  indicate, — with  some  sugges- 
tion of  its  ground, — what  is  the  dominant  view  among  devout 
and  intelligent  persons.  Dr.  Abbott  expresses  this  view  justly, 
and  its  main  ground.  He  knows,  and  the  present  writer  knows, 
Congregationalism  in  the  United  States  well,  and  Congrega- 
tionalism which  has  the  temper  just  summarized  in  this  re- 
gard, is  an  index  in  no  small  degree  of  the  state  of  intelligent 
opinion  on  this  subject  because  on  the  one  hand  it  is  evangelical, 
Christ-following,  and  dead-in-earnest,  and  yet  on  the  other 
hand  historically  and,  in  virtue  of  its  character,  it  is  also  broad- 
minded  and  inclusive. 

Without  desiring  to  be  personal,  the  present  writer  ventures 
to  adduce  one  evidence  of  what  is  the  Congregational  temper 
in  this  matter,  when  put  to  a  signal  test  on  his  installation, 
October  27th,  1896,  as  Minister  of  Plymouth  Church,  Minne- 
apolis. He  said,  speaking  of  man  in  his  inherent  condition 
"  Man  is  God's  child ;  man  always  will  be  God's  child.  He 
may  alienate  himself  never  so  much  from  God,  and  in  such  a 
sense  be  a  child  of  wrath,  speaking  in  the  figurative  language  of 
Scripture,  and  in  such  a  sense  in  this  still  figurative  language 
he  doubtless  needs  to  be  adopted  back  again  by  his  Father,  but 
none  the  less  he  can  never  cease  to  be  unless  he  can  cease  to 
exist,  a  child  of  God,  nor  pass  beyond  the  yearnings  of  God's 
love.  This,  as  I  believe,  is  a  clear  indication  of  scripture,  as 
certainly  it  tends  to  be  the  deepening  conviction  of  most  per- 
sons who  have  had  revealed  to  them  in  any  fulness  how  God  is 
Father  and  how  Christ  is  elder  brother." 

Under  the  head  of  redemption,  he  said  "  Toward  man's  re- 
demption from  that  individual  fall,  which  has  come  for  all  in- 


232      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

tents  and  purposes  to  him  universally, — all  the  energy,  love, 
and  power  of  God  the  Father,  God  the  Son  and  God  the  Spirit 
are  ever  directed.  The  redemption  is  not  a  forensic  matter. 
It  is  not  an  adjustment  of  laws  and  courts.  It  is  the  only  re- 
demption that  can  find  a  human  soul.  It  is  the  redemption  of 
life,  of  love,  of  suffering.  The  cross  was  always  set  up,  the 
Lamb  was  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world.  What 
happened  on  Calvary  was  the  outward  manifestation  in  time 
and  space  and  terms  of  human  anguish  of  the  always  bleeding 
heart  of  God  going  out  to  His  children.  Scripture  expressly 
speaks  of  Jesus  as  the  "  Same  yesterday,  to-day  and  forever," 
and  of  "  crucifying  Him  afresh."  That  is  the  way  of  our  re- 
demption. We  are  redeemed  through  the  love  and  suffering 
of  God.  These  find  us,  enable  us  to  see  how,  even  before  we 
ask,  we  are  forgiven,  and  how  we  need  but  to  come  to  Him 
and  we  shall  have  Life." 

The  candidate  in  expressing  his  primary  theological  con- 
viction said :  "  From  what  I  have  said  about  the  manifold 
means  used  of  God  for  the  redemption  of  men,  and  particularly 
though  so  briefly  about  the  Church  and  the  Sacraments,  and 
the  living  life  of  our  Lord,  running  through  them,  you  will 
have  perceived  that  I  believe  in  the  absoluteness  of  Jesus.  I 
do.  And  I  am  very  little  concerned  about  the  definition  of  Him 
or  any  like  thing  about  Him,  being  sure  that  ere  He  is  done, 
whoever  and  whatever  He  is,  He  will  command  all  life." 

Coming  to  the  last  things,  the  speaker  declared,  "  I  do  not 
think  that  the  universality  of  redemption  is  able  to  be  dog- 
matically affirmed  either  with  regard  to  all  persons  in  its  appli- 
cation or  to  all  duration.  As  I  intimated,  there  is  too  much 
scripture  looking  the  other  way  and  too  much  in  human  life. 
Therefore,  I  am  not  a  Universalist,  though  I  believe  that  Uni- 
versalists  have  witnessed  to  an  important  truth  for  our  time. 
On  the  other  hand,  on  grounds  which  I  implied  earlier,  I  have 
faith  to  hold  a  very  strong,  a  living,  and  an  inspiring  hope  that 
the  hundred  sheep  will  yet  be  found,  and  that  as  God  has  shut 
up  into  disobedience  it  has  been  in  order,  as  St.  Paul  says,  that 


Universalism  233 

"  He  might  have  mercy  upon  all."  To  put  it  a  little  differently 
I  believe  that  the  world  and  the  universe  are  God's  world  and 
universe  and  the  whole  of  them  God's.  And  that  the  mystery 
of  the  condition  of  sin  and  the  permission  of  suffering  has  its 
roots  in  that  moral  and  spiritual  education  of  the  universe 
which  is  its  raison  d'etre  of  the  eternal  purpose  of  God.  What 
shall  we  say  then  ?  Shall  we  sin  that  grace  may  abound  ?  God 
forbid.  In  fact,  the  more  in  my  judgment  one  entertains  such 
a  hope,  the  more  hateful  and  intrinsically  sinful  will  sin  seem 
to  the  person  holding,  and  the  more  will  he  desire  to  bring  men 
whether  in  Christendom  or  in  heathendom  or  in  that  third  and 
worse  category,  the  domain  of  Mohammedanism  to  the  knowl- 
edge and  the  love  of  God  in  Christ. 

Whoever  conceives  that  this  hope  works  the  other  way  does 
nt)t  know  what  this  hope  is,  that  has  got  hold  only  of  its  ter- 
minology. 

By  way  of  summarizing,  the  speaker  said :  ''  Concluding  this 
part  of  my  statement,  let  me  say,  that  I  have  a  gospel  for  men. 
It  is  a  gospel  of  the  divinity  and  beauty  and  glory  of  the  whole 
creation  of  God  and  in  particular  of  every  child  of  God  that  is 
to  say  of  every  person, — a  gospel  of  the  awfulness  of  sin,  of  its 
terrible  consequences, — a  gospel  of  the  infinite,  bleeding,  suffer- 
ing, forgiving  love  of  God,  and  effort  of  God  from  eternity  in 
Jesus  Christ  through  His  spirit  to  redeem  men  to  Himself, — 
and  of  the  presence  and  power  and  love  and  grace  of  the  Man 
of  Nazareth,  the  Lord  Jesus,  my  brother  and  theirs,  and  my 
and  their  All  in  All.  And  this  gospel  I  expect  to  see  or  begin 
to  see  applied  to  everything,  to  me  even  and  to  you,  and  to 
everybody,  and  to  every  side  and  aspect  of  life, — to  the  family, 
to  the  community,  to  society,  to  civics,  yea,  to  all  the  thinking 
and  poetry  and  arts,  and  wonder  and  manifoldness  of  existence. 
I  expect  soon  to  be  seen  in  this  world  no  longer,  but  I  do  not  ex- 
pect to  die.  I  expect  to  live.  I  expect  to  see  His  face  and  that 
His  name, — not  letters  which  would  disfigure,  but  His  very 
look, — shall  be  in  my  forehead.  I  do  not  expect  there  except  in 
the  scriptural  sense  to  rest,  but  in  scripture  phrase,  ''  to  rest  not, 


234      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

day  nor  night,"  to  work,  to  sacrifice,  to  know  the  fellowship  of 
His  suffering  there  as  well  as  here,  and  to  join  with  Him  in 
His  mighty  purpose  to  redeem  the  world  and  the  universe  to 
Himself," 

The  installing  council  was  the  largest  ever  convened  for 
Congregational  purposes  in  the  Northwest.  It  proceeded  to 
installation,  and  expressed  itself  regarding  the  candidate  thus 
**  We  record  our  assured  confidence  that  in  his  preaching  and 
living  he  exalts  Jesus  Christ  as  Lord  and  Saviour  and  as  the 
world's  only  hope.  We  declare  that  the  fellowship  of  Con- 
gregational Churches,  though  never  given  without  regard  to 
intellectual  conceptions  of  truth,  is  not  tied  to  them  alone,  but 
is  rather  given  upon  the  spirit  and  temper  and  proportion  in 
which  views  are  held.  On  these  grounds  therefore  we  advise 
the  Church  to  proceed  with  Dr.  Beach's  installation,  and  pro- 
fess our  readiness  to  assist  in  the  same." 

The  action  of  this  large  council  shows  conclusively  the  tem- 
per of  the  denomination  in  the  matter  of  inclusiveness  in  this 
regard. 

In  conclusion,  a  brief  summary  may  be  made  of  reasons  for 
holding  the  question  open,  even  though — as  does  the  present 
writer — one  cherishes  the  larger  hope. 

First :  There  is  much  scripture  that  looks  the  other  way. 

Second :  There  is  much  in  life  that  looks  the  other  way. 

Third :  The  analogy  of  failures  and  destructions  under  phy- 
sical evolution  may  hold  here. 

Fourth :  Dogmatic  Universalism,  the  afifirmation  that  *'  God 
is  a  Universalist,"  falls  under  the  suspicion  of  being  too  easy  a 
solution  of  a  most  complex,  intricate,  and  mysterious  problem. 
Universalism's  true  field  is  to  indicate  the  benevolence  of  the 
Divine  character  in  this  range, — not  to  end  the  problem. 

Fifth  :  The  whole  subject  includes  data  not  as  yet  accessible. 
It  transcends  the  present  bounds  of  knowledge. 

Sixth :  If  excessive  generalization  is  perilous  in  any  depart- 
ment of  knowledge  or  life,  it  is  peculiarly  so  in  this  matter  of  a 


Universalism  235 

soul's  destiny,  even  faith,  hope  and  love  are  bound  not  to  issue 
in  presumption.     '*  Thou  shalt  not  tempt  the  Lord  thy  God." 

One  word  more,  the  base  of  the  larger  hope  whereby — if  that 
hope  be  well  grounded — the  freedom  of  the  will  will  not  be  in- 
fringed and  the  reins  neither  held  before  him  nor  behind  him 
by  God,  but  be  left  in  human  hands,  is  the  Divine  image  in  man. 
God  on  His  side  will  never  cease  to  pity,  love  and  yearn  after 
His  children.  His  persuasions  will  be  infinitely  beautiful  and 
strong,  and  will  weary  not.  If  the  Divine  image  in  man  is  of 
such  a  nature  as  to  be  ultimately  responsive  to  this  beauty  and 
strength,  Universalism  is  true.  The  boy,  not  muscular  nor 
skilled  enough  to  drive  as  yet  will  become  so.  The  Divine 
power  will  not  hypnotize,  but  vitalize,  persuade  and  win.  It 
is  the  growing  hope  of  multitudes  of  devout  and  thoughtful 
men  and  women  that  such  prove  the  fact,  but  who  can  tell 
whether  the  free  will  will  not  shatter  the  Divine  image  ?  May 
not  pervert  it  so  that  even  the  Divine  beauty  and  strength  shall 
be  impotent  to  lay  hold  on  it  ?  What  discreet  person  will  deny 
this  possibility  ?     Who  will  dogmatize  about  a  hope  ? 


The  Person  of  Christ 


The  Person  of  Christ 

BY 

The  Reverend  F.  W.  AVELING,  M.A.,  B.Sc. 

THE  Christ  of  history  is  admitted  to  be  the  most  wonderful 
moral  phenomenon  in  the  world. 

His  supernatural  entrance  into  life,  His  early  wisdom, 
whereby  at  the  age  of  twelve  He  conversed  with  the  doctors  of 
the  law,  yet  displays  no  pertness.  His  hold  upon  the  poor, 
though  He  is  the  poorest  of  all.  His  magic  influence  on  sinners 
leading  them  to  give  up  their  evil  life.  His  resurrection,  His 
supernatural  exit  from  life,  mark  Him  out  as  above  all  other 
men. 

His  marvellous  career  is  shown  in, 

( 1 )  His  wonderful  wisdom  as  a  teacher. 

(2)  His  wonderful  innocence  and  sinlessness. 

(3)  His  wonderful  influence  over  others. 

(i)  As  a  teacher  we  note,  (a)  His  originality.  Without 
any  special  educational  advantages,  coming  forth  from  mental 
and  social  obscurity,  He  stands  out  as  the  greatest  teacher  of 
the  ages.  He  did  not  prove  His  words,  He  spoke  and  men  felt 
the  truth  of  His  sayings.  Again  though  living  in  an  age  of 
superstition  He  was  free  from  any  taint  of  that  folly.  Once 
more,  while  Socrates  and  Plato  taught  an  inferior  morality  to  a 
limited  few,  Jesus  taught  the  highest  ethics  to  the  multitudes 
and  made  virtue  ''  current  coin." 

(b)  His  boldness.  From  the  carpentershop  He  comes  forth 
to  inaugurate  a  kingdom  that  shall  be  universal  and  unmoved. 
He,  the  world's  greatest  reformer,  in  an  age  when  brute  force 
was  triumphant,  based  His  kingdom  on  love,  with  all  the  world 
against  Him  He  was  ever  calm  and  sure  of  the  issue. 

(c)  The  consistency  of  His  life  with  His  doctrine.  He  alone 
of  ethical  preachers  lived  up  to  what  He  preached,  in  Him  are 
found  all  virtues,  balanced  and  harmonized. 

(2)   His  sinlessness.     ''The  holiest  souls  are  most  alive  to 

239 


240      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

personal  sin,"  but  the  heart-broken  utterances  of  the  saints  are 
never  reached  by  Jesus.  He  has  no  sins  to  confess.  Those 
•who  knew  Him  best  and  could  have  pointed  out  flaws,  had 
there  been  any,  unanimously  call  Him  sinless.  He  claims  to 
be  sinless  (John  8 :  46).  If  He  was  not  sinless  He  was  a  great 
hypocrite.  Could  a  hypocrite  move  the  world  as  Christ  has 
done?  "  I  find  no  fault  in  this  man  "  (Luke  23  14). 
(3)   His  influence  over  others. 

(a)  No  one  has  yet  gone  beyond  Christ's  moral  teachings. 
Indeed  no  other  instructor  has  come  up  to  it. 

(b)  His  followers  totally  changed  their  life,  under  His  mag- 
netic influence. 

(c)  The  Christian  Church  with  its  mission  of  healing  and 
elevating,  with  its  martyrs  in  all  ages,  is  the  offspring  of  His 
wondrous  influence.  And  His  religion,  with  no  sword  like 
that  which  spread  Mahometanism,  by  peaceful  means  has  en- 
tered every  land. 

Again,  all  through  the  Jewish  Scriptures  of  the  old  Testa- 
ment there  are  predictions  of  and  aspirations  after  a  Messiah 
(anointed),  who  is  to  unite  the  oflice  of  prophet,  priest,  and 
king.  In  Gen.  3:15,  22,  18,  49:10;  Deut.  18:18;  Psal.  2, 
and  no;  Is.  9:  6  and  7,  42  :  1-4,53;  Mich.  5:1-5;  Jerem.  33: 
5  and  6,  15 :  16,  something  more  than  a  hint  is  given  that  the 
coming  one  was  to  be  divine  as  well  as  human.  The  great  les- 
son for  the  Jews  to  learn,  one  they  never  learned  properly  till 
after  the  captivity,  was  that  of  Monotheism.  Had  the  triune 
nature  of  the  Deity  been  revealed  to  them  in  early  times,  they 
would  inevitably  have  run  into  tri-theism,  and  then  to  poly- 
theism. 

The  teachings  of  the  New  Testament  distinctly  assert  the 
Christ  to  be  the  Son  of  God.  We  are  sometimes  told  that  only 
the  fourth  gospel,  and  not  the  synoptic  ones,  state  their  doc- 
trine. Let  us  look  then  at  the  synoptics  first.  The  angel  in- 
formed Mary  that  the  holy  thing  which  should  be  born  of  her 
should  be  called  Son  of  the  Highest,  and  should  have  an  ever- 
lasting kingdom  (Luke  1:32-33).     Matthew  (11:27)  ^^^^^  us 


The  Person  of  Christ  241 

that  Jesus  said  "  all  things  are  delivered  unto  Me  of  My  Father, 
and  no  man  knoweth  the  Son  but  the  Father ;  neither  any  man 
the  Father,  save  the  Son,  and  him  to  whom  the  Son  willeth  to 
reveal  Him."  Christ  here  asserts  a  knowledge  and  intimacy 
with  the  Father,  which  no  created  mortal  would  dare  to  claim. 
Again  in  Mat.  28:19-20,  we  read  that  Christ  commanded  His 
disciples  to  teach  all  the  nations  His  gospel,  and  to  baptize  them 
in  the  one  Name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit. 

Mark  (i :  11),  says  that,  when  Jesus  was  baptized,  a  voice 
from  heaven  said,  "  Thou  art  my  beloved  Son  in  whom  I  am 
well  pleased."  Peter  confessed  "  Thou  art  the  Son  of  the  liv- 
ing God  "  (Mat.  16:16).  Note  the  words,  "  the  Son,"  not  a 
Son.  Peter  in  the  Acts  ( 10 :36)  calls  Jesus  "  Lord  of  all."  If 
Christ  were  only  a  good  man,  such  language  would  be  blas- 
phemy. 

Jesus  declared  Himself  to  be  greater  than  the  temple;  for  He 
is  the  object  of  divine  worship  (Mat.  12-6). 

The  fourth  gospel  is  full  of  declarations  of  the  divinity  of 
our  Lord.  Christ  and  the  Father  are  one,  in  essential  being, 
power,  worship,  will,  love.  He  can  do  nothing  (morally) 
without  the  Father,  because  they  are  one  in  will  and  nature. 
The  world  and  man  were  made  by  the  Logos  (John  1:3; 
Colos.  1:6). 

Jesus  forgives  sins  (Mat.  9:2).  He  gives  life  and  quick- 
eneth  whom  He  will  (John  5:21).  The  Logos  humbled  Him- 
self to  be  a  man,  and  possessing  an  intimate  knowledge  of  our 
struggles,  through  the  bitter  experience  He  bought  in  the  hard 
market  of  human  life.  He  becomes  the  Judge  of  the  world. 
The  Father  giveth  all  things  into  His  hands  (John  13:3;  5  • 
22-23;  I  Cor.  15:25).  I  cannot  support  the  unscriptural  ex- 
pression "  eternal  generation,"  but  the  meaning  of  that  formula 
is  that  the  Sonship  of  the  Logos  is  eternal.  God  was  not  a 
haid  unit,  but  for  eternity  a  being  uniting  three  distinctions, 
Father,  Son,  Spirit. 

We  speak  of  God  as  our  Father;  Jesus  speaks  of  Him  as  My 
Father  (John  20:17;  Luke  2:49). 


242       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

Jesus  was  worshipped  on  many  occasions,  as  a  babe  ( Mat.  2 : 
11).  By  a  leper  (Mat.  8:2).  After  His  resurrection  by  His 
disciples  (Mat.  28:7-9). 

''  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with 
God,  and  the  Word  was  God  "  (John  i).  The  Word  become 
flesh.  The  divine  Word  entered  in  time,  into  our  human  state. 
The  Word  was  God  (in  essential  being),  and  became  (not  man 
but)  flesh.  That  fact  destroys  Docetism.  The  Word  revealed 
God's  thoughts. 

I  take  it  that  the  Scriptures  declared  Jesus  to  hold  a  unique 
relation  to  God.  The  incarnation  is  a  stupendous  miracle. 
The  full  comprehension  of  it  is  beyond  our  faculties  at  present ; 
for  we  know  not  enough  of  the  nature  of  Deity  to  understand 
it.  Some  theologians  speak  of  the  incarnation  of  God,  just  as 
Romanists  speak  of  the  Virgin  as  the  Mother  of  God.  Both 
these  terms  seem  to  me  as  unphilosophical  as  they  are  unscrip- 
tural.  The  Bible  teaches  the  incarnation  of  the  Logos.  Again 
the  expression,  "  God  the  Father,  God  the  Son,  and  God  the 
Holy  Ghost,"  is  unscriptural,  and  I  think  misleading.  It 
savours  distinctly  of  tri-theism,  not  trinity. 

Some  have  maintained  that  Christ  was  a  man  with  body, 
soul  and  spirit,  plus  the  Logos.  Such  a  doctrine  gives  our 
Lord  two  spirits,  a  divine  and  a  human  one;  two  wills,  the 
human  obeying  the  divine.  On  such  a  view  I  cannot  see  how 
our  Lord  would  differ  essentially  from  a  good  Christian  full  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  It  represents  Christ  as  a  union  of  God  and 
man,  but  not  the  God-man.  This  is  the  error  of  di-theism, 
which  bases  its  view  on  the  fact  that  there  were  struggles  in 
the  spiritual  life  of  Christ.  But  there  are  struggles  in  our 
spiritual  life  also ;  yet  we  have  but  one  will. 

Has  not  the  error  arisen  from  failure  to  grasp  the  doctrine  of 
the  Kenosis,  the  emptying  Himself  of  His  glory,  while  on 
earth?  To  say  that  Christ  knew  some  things  in  His  divine 
nature  which  He  knew  not  in  His  human  nature  seems  frivol- 
ously like  juggling  with  sublime  truths.  May  we  venture  to 
make  the  incarnation  more  comprehensible  by  putting  it  thus : 


The  Person  of  Christ  243 

— ^Jesus  had  a  human  body,  a  human  soul  (the  seat  of  desire 
and  appetites),  both  received  from  the  Virgin,  while  the  Spirit 
came  not  from  humanity  but  was  the  eternal  word  the  Logos. 

A  man  consists  of  ( i )  body,  (2)  soul,  which  gives  life  to  the 
body  and  creates  desires  and  appetites,  and  (3)  spirit,  his  true 
self.  The  Logos  took  the  place  of  spirit  in  Jesus.  Then  He 
divested  Himself,  for  the  time  He  was  on  earth,  of  His  equality 
with  God,  submitting  to  human  limitations  and  all  the  condi- 
tions and  experiences  of  humanity, — sin  duly  excepted. 

Jesus  was  the  Son  of  God  before  He  came  on  earth,  the 
Logos  held  a  relation  to  the  Father  so  close,  so  affectionate, 
that  the  best  way  to  express  it,  in  our  poor  human  language,  is 
to  call  Him  th^  Son  of  the  Father. 

On  earth.  His  powers  were  limited.  He  says  *'  My  Father  is 
greater  than  L"  After  His  ascension  He  resumed  His  glory. 
Why  should  it  be  thought  incredible,  that  God  should  become 
incarnate?  Man,  made  in  God's  image,  is  not  so  essentially 
unlike  God  as  to  render  incarnation  impossible.  It  is  sin  which 
separates  us  from  God,  but  sin  is  not  an  essential  characteristic 
of  man.  That  the  incarnation  is  a  mystery,  we  cheerfully 
admit,  all  great  ultimate  truths  are  mysterious.  Scratch  be- 
neath the  surface,  and  you  will  soon  come  upon  the  rock  of 
mystery.  And  all  mysteries  are  divine;  all  contradictions  hu- 
man. The  incarnation  is  not  a  contradiction  like  a  round- 
square,  as  Spinoza  said,  but  a  mystery  eluding  our  comprehen- 
sion. 

As  to  the  procession  of  the  Holy  Spirit  from  the  Father  and 
the  Son,  I  must  admit  that  I  cannot  understand  what  it  means. 
As  to  the  Athanasian  Creed,  to  say  nothing  of  its  uncharitable 
condemnatory  clauses,  I  confess  I  cannot  understand  it ;  but  it 
does  seem  to  contradict  itself.  We  had  better  keep  to  the 
words  of  Holy  Writ. 

There  are  many  texts  which  point  to  the  Holy  Spirit  as 
something  more  than  a  mere  influence.  ''  The  Spirit  searcheth 
all  things  "  (i  Cor.  2  :io).  "  I  beseech  you  by  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  by  the  love  of  the  Spirit  "  (Rom.  15  :  30).     ''  The 


244      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

Holy  Spirit  said  separate  unto  me  Barnabas  and  Saul  "  (Acts 
13:  2).  Again  the  Comforter,  the  Spirit,  is  spoken  of  as  He, 
not  It.      (John.  14:26;    16:8.) 

In  man  there  are  three  distinctions,  viz..  Feeling,  Intellect, 
Will,  but  man  is  a  unit.  So  we  read  of  the  "  grace  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  and  the  love  of  God  the  Father,  and  the  fellow- 
ship of  the  Holy  Spirit."  But  these  are  not  the  emotions  or 
influences  of  three  Gods;  they  are  the  working  of  a  triune 
Lord. 

The  great  difficulty  men  have  had  in  believing  the  incarna- 
tion, arises  from  that  doctrine  having  been  misrepresented. 
They  have  regarded  God  as  a  magnified  man,  and  so  regarded 
the  Trinity  as  three  magnified  men — Witness  those  representa- 
tions of  the  Godhead,  sometimes  found  on  the  continent,  where 
on  the  Cross  is  Christ  (the  Son),  on  the  top  of  the  cross  is  a 
dove  (the  Holy  Spirit),  and  above  all,  the  head  of  a  benevolent 
man  (the  Father)  !  The  Godhead  is  not  a  magnified  man  with 
a  big  body.  We  are  made  in  God's  image,  not  as  to  our  body, 
but  as  to  our  mental  and  moral  nature,  our  feelings,  thoughts 
and  volitions. 

Those  who  knew  Christ  best  declared  Him  to  be  the  (not  a) 
Son  of  God.  That  doctrine  was  no  myth,  growing  up  in  later 
years.  Is  it  not  less  marvellous  that  Christ  should  be  Deity 
incarnate,  than  that  an  impostor  blasphemously  claiming  equal- 
ity in  essence  with  God  should  have  set  before  the  world  the 
sublimest,  noblest,  purest  character  in  history?  Paul  admits, 
emphasizes,  the  Kenosis.  (Phil.  2:6-8.)  For  thirty-three 
years  Christ  on  earth  was  inferior  to  the  Father,  not  in  holi- 
ness or  love,  but  in  office,  in  knowledge,  in  grandeur.  On 
earth  Jesus  underwent  development  (Heb.  5:8),  was  tempted 
as  we  are  (Heb.  4:15),  was  dependent  on  the  Father  (John. 
5  :3o),  knew  not  when  the  day  of  judgment  would  come  (Mark 
13:32).  But  all  this  temporary  subjection  was  voluntary. 
When  on  earth  His  divine  functions  and  honours  were  largely 
handed  over  to  the  Father,  and  again  bestowed  upon  the  Son 
by  the  Father  after  His  resurrection  from  the  dead. 


The  Person  of  Christ  245 

And  this  Kenosis  was  necessary.  He  could  not  have  been 
in  all  things  like  His  brethren,  if  He  had  retained  all  His  divine 
prerogatives.  "  And  here,  O  Father,  glorify  Thou  Me  zvith 
Thine  own  self,  with  the  glory  which  I  had  with  Thee  before 
the  world  was."  (John  17:5.)  Belief  in  the  incarnation  has 
been  the  cherished  tenet  of  most  of  the  Christian  Churches  from 
the  days  of  the  apostles.  Disbelief  therein  seems  to  me  to  have 
the  following  serious  consequences : 

( 1 )  It  tends  to  destroy  the  fatherly  character  of  God,  allow- 
ing Him  to  be  a  father  only  after  man  was  created — and  it 
tends  to  Deism  or  Pantheism. 

(2)  It  lessens  the  perfection,  or  the  beauty  of  God's  char- 
acter, not  allowing  Him  to  have  always  had  fraternal  instincts. 

(3)  It  robs  us  of  the  one  infallible  teacher  the  world  has  had, 
for  if  Christ  is  not  what  He  claimed  to  be,  the  Son  of  God,  how 
can  we  acquit  Him  of  false  teachings. 

(4)  It  robs  us  of  the  sublimest  example  of  condescension 
and  self  sacrifice  (God  sending  His  own  Son,  who  voluntarily 
came,  to  live  and  die  for  us). 

(5)  It  robs  humanity  of  the  honour  put  upon  it  by  the  in- 
carnation. 

(6)  It  spoils  both  Jewish  and  Christian  history. 

(7)  It  takes  away  the  very  life-blood  of  the  Christian  faith. 
Looking  up  into  the  face  of  the  sinless  Jesus,  we  believe  His 

words  assuring  us  that  He  lived  with  the  eternal  Father  before 
He  came  on  earth,  that  He  was,  and  is,  the  eternal  Son  of  God. 


The  Person  of  Christ 


The  Person  of  Christ 


The  Reverend  CHARLES  F.  DOLE. 

IT  is  inevitable  that  men  should  take  up  the  old  question: 
''What  think  ye  of  Christ?"  in  the  light  of  modern 
thought,  with  reference  to  new  conceptions  of  the  Universe, 
with  the  help  of  the  clew  given  by  the  idea  of  Evolution,  and 
with  the  flood  of  illumination  that  comes  through  modem  Bibli- 
cal criticism.  The  problem  is  not  merely  intellectual ;  its  issue 
is  ethical  and  spiritual. 

Our  question  to-day  has  obviously  become  twofold.  The 
first  part  touches  a  matter  of  historical  fact.  Who  do  we  mod- 
ern men  think  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  ?  What  do  we  make 
of  his  character  and  personality?  At  least,  what  is  both  true 
and  important  for  us  to  think  about  him  ? 

The  second  part  of  our  inquiry  is  entirely  different.  It  is 
this :  What  do  modern  men,  and  especially  the  most  thoughtful 
and  representative  men  mean,  when  they  speak  of  "  Christ "  ? 
It  may  be,  of  course,  that  men  mean  the  same  thing  by  "  the 
mind  of  Christ  "  and  "  the  mind  of  Jesus  ".  But  these  are  cer- 
tainly different  expressions,  and  they  are  likely  to  offer  some- 
what different  interpretations.  Let  us  take  the  historical  sub- 
ject first. 

Have  we  the  means  to-day  to  draw  near  enough  to  the  his- 
torical Jesus,  to  become  acquainted  with  him,  and  to  determine 
his  rank  in  the  scale  of  being?  I  do  not  see  how  this  is  possi- 
ble. Even  when  men  imagined  that  they  had  an  inerrant  Bi- 
ble, the  task  was  difficult  enough.  Knowing  what  we  now 
know  of  the  nature  of  the  New  Testament  writings,  we  can 
only  guess,  each  for  himself,  as  to  the  moral  and  spiritual  fea- 
tures and  stature  of  Jesus.  We  surely  seem  to  see  the  outlines 
of  a  grand  and  noble  figure.  But  we  are  obliged  to  clothe  it 
mostly  in  the  forms  which  our  own  imaginations  furnish. 
Some  tell  us  that  they  can  distinguish  in  Jesus  no  human  limita- 

249 


250      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

tions ;  others  think  that  the  Hmitations  of  the  man  and  the  age 
are  as  obvious  as  anything  to  be  found  in  the  meager  frag- 
ments of  the  biography.  When,  however,  the  practical  ques- 
tions have  to  be  put :  ''  Do  you  purpose  exactly  to  imitate  the 
actual  Jesus?  Is  it  safe  to  adopt  all  his  ideas?  If  he  drank 
wine,  shall  we  drink  wine?  If  he  cried  woes  upon  the  re- 
spectable Church  members  of  his  time,  shall  we  too  venture  to 
call  down  woes  upon  modern  Pharisees?  Shall  we,  like  him, 
believe  in  Satan  and  his  devils?  Shall  we  expect  the  speedy 
end  of  the  world  ?  Shall  we  turn  the  other  cheek  to  the  smiter 
and  resist  not  evil  ?  "  I  find  the  barest  minority  of  the  believ- 
ers in  the  authority  of  Jesus,  who  do  not  wince  under  such 
questions  as  these. 

What,  now,  is  the  use  of  saying  that  Jesus  was  God,  if  it  is 
not  safe  exactly  to  imitate  him?  Or,  if  the  absolute  truth  is 
lacking,  in  things  which  he  said?  Or,  if  we  never  can  know 
for  certain  what  he  did  say?  Who  to-day  is  willing  to  accept 
the  old  belief  in  eternal  punishment,  on  the  strength  of  Jesus' 
authority  ?  Accept  it,  and  you  have  not  only  hurt  Jesus'  ideal 
character  as  a  man  of  love,  but  you  have  cast  a  doubt  upon  the 
moral  integrity  of  the  Universe.  Reject  it,  and  there  is  no 
teaching  of  Jesus  which  you  can  urge  as  authentic. 

I  have  purposely  raised  insoluble  difficulties.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  you  can  ever  demonstrate  how  great  in  the  spiritual 
realm  the  nature  of  Jesus  was.  I  cannot  see  that  this  is  even 
important.  You  do  not  insist  upon  settling  this  part  of  the 
question  with  any  other  figure  of  history.  You  do  not  insist 
that  men  shall  agree  that  Homer  or  Shakespeare  was  supreme 
in  the  realm  of  letters.  You  do  not  agree  that  Columbus  was 
greater  than  David  Livingstone.  You  let  men  think  what 
they  will,  as  to  the  rank  of  all  great  historic  characters.  I  plead 
for  the  same  freedom  about  Jesus. 

This  brings  me  to  speak  of  the  only  facts  upon  which  we  can 
depend,  and  which  alone  seem  to  me  important  to-day.  Re- 
serving all  matters  of  dissent  or  criticism,  it  remains  that  Jesus 
stands  as  the  historical  type,  as  well  as  the  teacher,  of  a  new 


The  Person  of  Christ  251 

order  of  human  life.  In  the  Beatitudes,  the  Golden  Rule  and 
the  parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan,  the  world  is  made  to  face 
the  ideal  of  the  life  of  the  true  children  of  God.  Grant  that 
these  teachings  were  not  original  with  Jesus.  Nevertheless,  he 
is  the  conspicuous  figure  of  the  man  who  adopted  them,  trusted 
them  and  went  to  his  death  for  their  sake.  The  teachings  took 
his  name,  because  somehow  he  contrived  to  give  them  reality 
and  working  power.  They  are  the  teachings  which  underlie 
all  modern  civilization.  The  spirit  of  them,  released  from 
bondage  to  the  letter,  means  to-day  friendliness,  humanity, 
faith  in  the  divine  universe,  and  life  eternal.  It  is  a  very  im- 
practicable question  to  ask,  whether  a  man  believes  that  Jesus 
was  God.  The  worst  men  may  believe  this  and  tremble.  They 
are  no  better  for  believing  it.  It  is  a  vital  question  to  ask  any 
man :  Do  you  believe  in  what  the  good  Samaritan  did  ?  And 
will  you  go  and  do  likewise? 

I  have  already  suggested  that,  when  men  speak  of  "  Christ," 
they  do  not  necessarily  mean  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  They  are  not 
even  thinking  of  him.  They  do  not  know  him  well  enough  to 
think  of  him.  They  might  not  be  sure  to  Hke  his  permanent 
company,  if  he  were  suddenly  to  come  for  a  month's  visit  to 
their  house.  Whom  now  do  men  mean  by  Christ,  "  the  living 
Christ,"  "  the  present  Christ?  "  Have  the  men  of  the  Christo- 
centric  theology  discovered  a  new  God,  of  whom  others  are 
ignorant  ?  I  answer,  without  fear  of  intelligent  contradiction, 
that  the  name  of  Christ  has  come  to  be,  for  many,  simply  an- 
other and  somewhat  dearer  name  for  God.  Under  this 
name  is  the  thought  of  a  Presence,  infinite,  full  of  power, 
of  boundless  intelligence,  absolute  in  His  goodness.  Here 
is  all  "  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead."  What  is  there  lack- 
ing? If  there  is  a  mystic  threeness,  or  any  species  of  mani- 
foldness  in  the  Deity,  there  must  be  this  threeness  or 
manifoldness  in  '*  Christ."  For  all  that  can  be  conceived  is  in 
Him.  In  other  words,  if  there  is  a  Trinity,  the  modern  Christ 
is  that  Trinity.  You  have  so  described  Christ  that  you  have 
left  nothing  to  say  about  God.     Do  you  say  that  Christ  is  the 


25^      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

"  Son  ?  '*  What  new  word  of  differentiation  can  you  add  for 
the  conception  of  the  Father?  What  new  word  can  you  add 
to  describe  the  Holy  Spirit  ?  What  does  the  Father  do,  which 
Christ  has  not  done?  What  is  the  office  or  function  of  the 
"  Holy  Ghost,"  alongside  of  the  immanent  Christ  ?  There  are 
not  three  divine  presences !  If  there  were  three,  each  would  be 
exactly  identical  with  the  others,  and  each  would  have  its 
threeness  or  manifoldness.  Is  not  one  infinite  and  perfect 
Presence,  in  whom  are  Power,  Wisdom  and  Goodness,  Lover 
of  all  the  souls  of  men,  with  whom  men  can  come  into  com- 
munion, surely  enough  for  all  purposes  of  thought,  worship 
or  noble  conduct? 

Those  who  make  the  person  of  Christ  identical  with  their 
thoug'ht  of  the  fulness  of  God,  ought  to  know  that  this  is  a  new 
extension  of  the  meaning  of  words.  Paul,  for  example,  never 
confounded  Christ  with  Almighty  God.  In  Paul's  thought, 
difficult  and  mystical  as  it  appears,  Christ  and  God  were  evi- 
dently two  distinct  persons,  in  the  ordinary  and  natural  sense 
of  the  word  "  person." 

Neither  did  the  makers  of  the  Nicene  Creed  conceive  of 
Christ  as  the  modern  Christocentric  theologians  conceive  of 
him.  Their  thought  may  be  vague,  but  they  at  least  fancied 
that  they  had  some  use  for  the  Father,  and  the  Holy  Ghost, 
as  well  as  for  Christ,  the  Son.  Though  they  strained  lan- 
guage, they  made  an  attempt  to  persuade  themselves  that  the 
first  and  third  Persons  of  the  Trinity  had  offices  to  perform 
which  the  Son  alone  could  not  perform.  It  was  left  for  our 
modern  theologians  to  arrogate  to  the  Son  all  divine  offices. 

I  have  already  insisted  that,  in  modern  thought,  "  Christ " 
cannot  possibly  be  identified  with  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Let  us 
leave  no  doubt  here,  for  it  is  on  this  point  that  our  Christo- 
centric friends  play  fast  and  loose  with  language.  If  we  use 
"  Christ  "  to  stand  for  God,  we  all  agree  that  God  was  re- 
vealed in  Jesus,  as  He  must,  by  parity  of  reasoning,  be  revealed 
wherever  goodness  shines.  Grant,  if  you  please,  that  Jesus 
held  all  of  the  Deity  that  a  human  life  can  hold;    this  is  not 


The  Person  of  Christ  253 

saying  that  the  fulness  of  the  infinite  God  dwelt  in  Jesus.  We 
to-day  know  better.  We  know  that  he  felt  the  limitations  of 
a  Jewish  education  and  environment.  No  modern  man  can 
believe  that  the  historical  Jesus  was  present  in  Capernaum  and 
in  Rome  at  oneand  the  same  time,  as  men  now  saythat"  Christ'* 
is  present  at  once  in  London  and  New  York,  and  in  the 
Pleiades  as  well.  On  the  contrary,  Jesus  possessed  his  own 
proper  human  personality,  differentiating  him  from  God,  or 
Christ,  so  far  as  any  soul  can  ever  be  differentiated  from  the 
Giver  of  his  being. 

This  brings  me  to  say  a  word  as  to  Jesus'  own  reported 
sayings  about  himself.  Does  he  not  claim  a  certain  identity  with 
Deity?  Does  he  not  put  himself  above  all  common  humanity 
in  the  terms  of  some  kind  of  spiritual  sovereignty  ?  We  must 
make  allowance  here  for  the  mystic  ideas  of  Messiahship, 
floating  in  the  minds  of  all  Jesus'  contemporaries  and  fol- 
lowers. We  must  make  allowance  for  the  oriental  mind,  es- 
pecially in  the  prophetic  order  of  person.  With  moderate  al- 
lowance for  the  difference  of  colour  and  point  of  view  between 
Jesus'  age  and  ours,  I  make  bold  to  say  that  Jesus  claims  noth- 
ing for  himself  which  is  not  universally  true  of  the  ideal  or 
divine  nature  inherent  in  all  of  us.  If  we  may  call  God  our 
Father  in  any  real  sense  of  the  word,  let  us  not  be  afraid  of  the 
consequent  dignity  of  our  common  human  nature.  Let  us 
carry  the  doctrine  of  our  divine  Sonship  as  far  as  it  will  go. 
If  we  live  in  God,  He  lives  in  us;  that  is,  ''  the  eternal  "  or  im- 
mortal nature  is  in  us.  What  higher  things  can  we  say?  No 
fear  that  this  will  make  us  arrogant  or  immodest!  The  con- 
ception empties  us  of  all  egotism  and  selfishness.  What  is 
the  divine  and  sovereign  nature  which  sets  man  above  the  stars 
and  gives  rule  over  all  the  works  of  God  ?  It  is  love  or  benef- 
icence. The  lower  sovereignty  was  to  crush  and  subdue ;  it  was 
to  get,  with  the  idea  of  self  as  a  center.  The  divine  sovereignty 
is  to  give,  to  serve,  to  uplift.  This  is  the  kernel  of  the  gospel ; 
it  is  a  new  order  of  life.  Keep  this  clew  in  mind  and  you  may 
say  of  yourself  whatever  Jesus  said.     You  will  not  think  of 


2  54      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

yourself  in  what  you  say;  you  will  think  what  is  true  of  the 
divine  nature,  which  you  simply  share- 
See  now  what  an  extraordinary  and  interesting  development 
the  word  "  Christ  "  has  taken  on.  Even  the  word  "  spirit  " 
has  not  marched  further  from  its  original  meaning.  Christ, 
first,  was  simply  an  adjective,  to  describe  the  anointed  one, 
whether  a  king  or  a  priest.  Then  it  became  the  title  where- 
with to  call  the  hero-king  who  should  come  to  save  the  Jewish 
people.  Then  Jesus  changed  the  ideal  of  the  hero  from  the 
man  of  force  to  the  man  of  good  will  and  peace.  Then  Paul 
took  the  word  for  the  idealized  Presence  of  his  visions,  the 
celestial  man,  the  head  of  the  race.  Then  the  title,  getting 
further  from  the  historical  Jesus,  went  over  to  describe  a 
metaphysical  Being,  a  sort  of  an  emanation  of  the  Deity ;  now, 
lastly,  the  title  has  come  to  stand  for  the  Deity  Himself. 

The  new  use  of  the  word  Christ  covers  two  opposite  tenden- 
cies. One  is  cowardly  and  superficial.  There  are  those  who 
desire,  by  means  of  familiar  words,  to  get  the  advantage, 
prestige  and  popularity  of  the  old  faith.  They  are  shy  of 
telling  the  frank  truth,  namely,  that  old  words  have  developed 
into  new  meaning,  which  would  not  be  altogether  recognized 
or  understood  by  earlier  men.  For  want  of  frankness,  they 
are  willing  to  appear  to  worship  a  different  God  from  the 
God  of  James  Martineau  or  Dr.  Hale  or  President  Eliot. 
They  are  content  to  go  on  misleading  and  confusing  the  minds 
of  each  new  generation  of  children  by  a  semblance  of  teach- 
ing which  simple  people  have  never  yet  been  able  to  understand 
and  which  separates  good  men  from  one  another's  company. 
The  other  tendency  in  the  use  of  the  word  "  Christ  "  is 
thoroughly  respectable.  A  religion  wants  a  name,  a  motto, 
we  might  say  a  flag  about  which  its  adherents  may  rally. 
"  Who  are  you?  "  the  world  asks  of  the  followers  of  any  re- 
ligion. "  Tell  us  in  one  word  what  you  stand  for  and  what 
your  faith  is."  The  tenacity  of  earnest  and  progressive  men 
in  holding  upon  the  words  Christ  and  Christian,  is  here  ex- 
plained.    We  believe  in  the  old  flag,  men  cry.     True,  the  flag 


The  Person  of  Christ  255 

no  longer  floats  over  a  king's  palace;  it  is  over  market-places 
and  schoolhouses.  It  does  not  represent  loyalty,  but  the  v^el- 
fare  of  all  the  people.  All  men  love  it ;  it  is  the  symbol  of  their 
common  country.  So  the  name  of  Christ  seems  to  a  multitude 
of  people  to  be  inseparable  from  their  common  faith  in  a  good 
God  and  a  divine  humanity.  As  theists  take  up  the  word 
God,  that  once  carried  and  that  still  carries  to  some  the  thought 
of  a  distant,  austere,  jealous  artificer  and  despot,  and  adapt  the 
word  in  spite  of  its  crude  old  associations,  to  convey  the  most 
modern  and  philosophical  conception  of  the  present  and  benef- 
icent Life  of  the  universe,  so  men  adapt  the  name  "  Christ  " 
to  carry  their  faith  in  this  same  good  God,  incarnate  in  the  life 
of  humanity. 

The  practical  question  in  religious  thought  to-day  is  this: 
Can  the  word  Christ  be  honestly  used,  with  a  still  fresher  and 
frank  adaptation  of  meaning,  to  express  a  perfectly  rational 
conception  of  a  great  reality,  which  is  slowly  coming  to  con- 
sciousness in  the  religious  experience  of  our  race?  This  con- 
ception is  the  divine  nature  in  humanity,  the  higher  potentiality 
in  all  men.  We  call  this  by  various  terms : — "  The  higher  na- 
ture," "  The  better  self."  It  is  by  virtue  of  this  quality  or  na- 
ture in  us  that  we  have  real  personality.  At  our  best,  good- 
will possesses  us,  flows  in  us,  dominates  our  conduct.  This 
good  will  is  the  highest  expression  of  the  life  of  God.  It  is 
through  this  good  will  ruling  us  that  we  venture  to  call  our- 
selves the  children  of  God.  We  are  God's  children  as  we  are 
like  Him  in  His  highest  attributes.  At  our  best,  God's  power, 
intelligence,  justice  and  goodness  are  incarnate  in  us.  There 
is  now  a  law  of  unity  in  us,  co-ordinating  all  the  experiences 
of  our  lives  into  their  orderly  place.  There  is  now  no  dis- 
sonance between  the  body  and  the  spirit.  Spirit  possesses  the 
body.  There  is  inward,  moral  and  spiritual  health,  of  which 
the  nice  adjustments  of  the  bodily  health  are  but  a  parallel. 
This  sort  or  order  of  life  seems  to  have  been  precisely  that 
which  the  Jesus  of  history  preached  and  lived.  The  Beatitudes 
set  it  forth.    The  key  to  it  was  in  Jesus'  thought  that  the  true 


256      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

or  ideal  man,  that  is,  the  moral  man,  is  not  here  to  be  minis- 
tered unto,  but  to  minister  and  to  pour  out  his  life  for  the  wel- 
fare of  all.  In  other  words,  in  the  truest  human  life,  the  divine 
law  holds  that  a  man  lives  not  by  getting,  but  by  giving  and 
doing.  Life  is  at  its  maximum  of  power,  peace,  joy,  efficiency, 
to  the  man  who  gives  himself  utterly  to  be  the  channel,  the 
voice,  the  minister,  aye  rather  the  Son  and  the  sharer  of  the 
divine  beneficence. 

This  was  substantially  the  secret  of  Paul's  gospel.  Under- 
neath his  somewhat  obscure  and  rabbinical  philosophy  was  the 
idea  of  a  life,  as  he  says,  "  hid  with  Christ  in  God."  He  could 
"  do  all  things  through  Christ."  When  he  was  weak,  then  was 
he  strong.  What  did  he  mean?  He  meant  what  we  mean 
to-day  at  those  times  when,  without  thought  of  reward  or 
personal  gain,  we  lend  ourselves  to  every  motion  of  the  good 
will  of  God,  to  conscience,  to  duty,  to  truth,  to  our  love.  Then 
we  feel  God  within  us,  then  our  brightest  thoughts  come,  as 
if  God  told  them  to  us;  then  anxieties  and  fears  vanish  and 
we  are  at  rest,  as  men  who  have  found  themselves.  For  in 
every  hour  of  good-will  we  find  God.  We  are  also  in  com- 
munion with  all  true  and  good  men;  our  lives  move  together 
and  in  one  way. 

What  I  suggest  is,  whether  the  word  Christ,  by  one  step 
further  in  its  development,  is  not  coming  to  stand  for  the  God  in 
us,  that  is  for  our  own  complete  personality.  In  this  sense,  when 
I  say  that  I  believe  in  Christ,  I  simply  mean  that  I  believe  in 
the  divineness  of  man;  I  believe  that  God  is  incarnate  to-day 
in  thousands  of  the  men  of  good-will ;  I  believe  that  I  live  and 
move  and  have  my  being  in  God.  Do  I  believe,  someone  asks, 
in  the  divinity  of  Jesus  ?  Yes,  surely ;  in  his  deity,  if  you  like 
to  say  so.  But  I  find  the  same  deity  in  Isaiah,  in  the  noble 
Epictetus,  in  the  great  and  wise  Marcus  Aurelius.  What  else 
was  it  that  lifted  them  to  the  shining  heights  of  heroism?  If 
"  Christ "  has  come  to  mean  the  God  in  man,  then  I  believe  in 
Christ. 

More  practically,  this  conception  commits  those  who  hold 


The  Person  of  Christ  257 

it,  to  a  perfectly  definite  ideal  of  conduct  and  life.  I  take 
Christ  to  be  the  name  or  title  of  my  better,  divine  or  ideal 
self.  If  I  believe  in  this  nature,  I  am  debarred  at  once  from 
being  mean  or  selfish.  I  can  stoop  to  no  untruth.  I  am  held 
up  to  a  supreme  standard  of  generosity  and  devotion.  Show 
me  what  my  friends,  my  household,  my  neighbors,  the  city, 
the  state,  the  welfare  of  mankind  demands  of  me  and  I  am 
here  to  do  it,  as  if  I  held  the  trusteeship  of  all  the  divine  re- 
sources. 

Take  the  same  idea  in  another  form.  Suppose  I  ask  what 
"  Christ ''  would  do  in  certain  given  circumstances  ?  Would 
he  hold  slaves  ?  Would  he  drink  wine  ?  Would  he  ever  tell  a 
falsehood?  Would  he  allow  a  war?  Would  he  advocate  the 
policy  of  imperialism?  I  do  not  mean,  what  would  Jesus  do 
in  the  same  circumstances.  I  do  not  and  cannot  know  what 
Jesus  would  do.  I  really  mean :  What  would  my  ideal  self,  the 
highest  possible  creation  of  my  ethical  imagination,  the  God  in 
me,  do  ?  What  he  bids,  that  I  must  do.  I  know  no  law  so  im- 
pressive, inspiring  or  practical.  I  do  not  say  that  it  is  infal- 
lible, for  I  am  an  imperfect  intelligence  wherewith  to  contain 
the  divine  wisdom.  I  say  that,  by  the  side  of  this,  no  other 
law  is  so  simple,  clear  or  feasible. 

We  have  here  a  thought  of  "  the  person  of  Christ,"  which  is 
identical  with  the  ideal  personality  of  each  one  of  us.  It  is 
that  by  virtue  of  which  we  are  immortal  spirits.  I  believe  that 
I  could  gather  many  pages  out  of  the  most  profound  human 
experience  to  show  that  the  best  thought  of  Christendom  has 
moved  steadily  toward  this  largest  and  loftiest  of  all  concep- 
tions of  the  divine  human  nature ;  that  it  is  in  the  straight  line 
of  historic  development  from  the  early  days. 

Whether  the  word  Christ  is  the  best  name  to  express  this 
magnificent  conception,  I  do  not  dare  to  say.  The  new  use  is 
surely  a  legitimate  development  of  the  history  of  the  word. 
The  word  at  first,  like  Master,  was  the  title  of  one  man,  a 
sovereign  in  the  realm  of  force.  It  has  now  become,  like 
Master,  the  democratic  title  of  respect  and  honor  for  all  who 


258       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

share  our  common  human  nature.  In  proportion  as  we  honour 
every  man  as  a  Master,  a  Person,  a  grown  man,  we  tend  to  find 
in  him  a  Christ  or  Son  of  God. 

If,  however,  Christ  is  the  best  word  to  fit  the  fact,  it  will 
not  be  proved  so  by  any  urgent  insistence  that  all  men  must 
use  it.  It  must  be  unbound  from  creedal  limits,  to  win  its  own 
free  way  to  common  acceptance.  It  must  take  its  chances  with 
other  words  and  phrases  which  equally  express  the  same 
reality.  Moreover,  its  new  use,  as  distinguished  from  other 
uses  of  the  past,  must  be  honestly  and  distinctly  proclaimed. 

One  thing,  finally,  is  certain.  The  faith,  the  religion,  the 
life  which  goes  with  our  thought  of  the  divine  humanity,  that 
is,  the  God  in  man,  or  the  ideal  Christ,  is  altogether  a  grander 
thing  than  the  Christianity  of  history,  of  the  creeds  and  of  the 
historic  churches.  This  religion  and  the  ordinary  Christianity 
ought  not  to  be  confounded  or  even  to  bear  the  same  name. 
The  Christianity  of  the  creeds  and  the  churches  has  busied  it- 
self chiefly  with  methods  of  how  to  evade  the  Christianity  of 
the  ideal  Christ.  It  has  dealt  mostly  in  names  and  symbols  and 
not  in  realities.  It  has  let  men  be  content  to  worship  Christ, 
who  never  had  caught  the  idea  of  living  the  life  of  Christ.  If 
we  stand  to-day  for  Christianity,  it  is  a  new  Christianity,  as 
different  from  the  prevailing  religions  of  Christendom,  as 
Jesus'  religion  was  different  from  the  religion  of  the  Scribes 
and  Pharisees.  We  want  a  practical  and  spiritual  religion, 
new  to  the  world  and  yet  as  old  as  the  prophets.  The  reality 
is  dearer  than  all  names,  symbols,  flags  or  sacraments.  The 
ideal  Christ  before  each  of  us  is  grander  than  the  holiest  man 
of  the  past.  If  any  familiar  names  or  words  will  help  us  to 
possess  this  Christlike  type  of  life,  let  us  lay  hold  boldly  on 
such  words  and  convert  them  to  this  highest  use.  If  they  do 
not  help  us,  if  they  stand  in  our  way,  if  they  confuse  and  befog 
the  minds  of  men,  let  us  set  them  aside,  as  the  ideal  Christ 
surely  commands.  The  name,  Christ,  is  now  on  trial  before 
the  world.    Can  it  be  converted  to  the  service  of  humanity? 


The  Atonement 


The  Atonement 

BY 

The  Reverend  Professor  FRANKLIN  JOHNSON,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

AT  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  the  opening  of  the 
twentieth,  the  Christian  world  as  a  whole  believes  in  a 
substitutionary  atonement.  This  has  been  its  belief  ever  since 
it  began  to  think.  The  doctrine  was  stated  by  Athanasius  as 
clearly  and  fully  as  by  any  later  writer.  All  the  great  historic 
creeds  which  set  forth  the  atonement  at  any  length  set  forth  a 
substitutionary  atonement.  All  the  great  historic  systems  of 
theology  enshrine  it  as  the  very  ark  of  the  covenant,  the  cen- 
tral object  of  the  holy  of  holies. 

While  the  Christian  world  in  general  believes  in  a  substi- 
tutionary atonement,  it  is  less  inclined  than  it  once  was  to  re- 
gard any  existing  theory  of  substitution  as  entirely  adequate. 
It  accepts  the  substitution  of  Christ  as  a  fact,  and  it  tends  to 
esteem  the  theories  concerning  it  only  as  glimpses  of  a  truth 
larger  than  all  of  them.  It  observes  that  an  early  theory  found 
the  necessity  of  the  atonement  in  the  veracity  of  God,  that  a 
later  one  found  it  in  the  honour  of  God,  and  that  a  still  later 
one  found  it  in  the  government  of  God,  and  it  deems  all  these 
speculations  helpful,  while  it  yearns  for  further  light. 

If  we  should  ask  those  who  hold  this  doctrine  on  what 
grounds  they  believe  that  Christ  is  the  substitute  for  sinners, 
there  would  be  many  answers,  but  perhaps  in  only  two  of  them 
would  all  voices  agree.  The  first  of  these  grounds  would  be 
the  repeated  declarations  of  holy  Scripture,  which  are  so  clear, 
so  precise,  so  numerous,  and  so  varied,  that  they  leave  no  room 
to  doubt  their  meaning.  The  other  ground  is  the  testimony  of 
the  human  heart  wherever  it  mourns  its  sin  or  rejoices  in  an 
accomplished  deliverance.  The  declaration  of  the  Scriptures 
that  Christ  bore  our  sins  on  the  cross  is  necessary  to  satisfy 
the  longings  of  the  soul.  The  Christian  world  in  general 
would  say:  "  We  believe  in  gravitation,  in  light,  in  electricity, 

261 


262      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

in  the  all  pervading  ether,  because  we  must,  and  not  because 
we  can  explain  them  fully.  So  we  believe  that  Christ  died  in- 
stead of  the  sinner  because  we  must,  and  not  because  we  know 
all  the  reasons  which  led  God  to  appoint  and  to  accept  His 
sacrifice." 

While  the  Christian  world  as  a  whole  believes  in  a  substi- 
tutionary atonement,  the  doctrine  is  rejected  by  a  minority  of 
devout  and  able  men,  who  present  instead  of  it  what  has  often 
been  called  "  the  moral  influence  theory."  According  to  this, 
the  sole  mission  of  Christ  was  to  reveal  the  love  of  God  in  a 
way  so  moving  as  to  melt  the  heart  and  induce  men  to  for- 
sake sin.  The  theory  is  sometimes  urged  with  so  great  elo- 
quence and  tenderness  that  one  will  fain  find  it  sufficient  as 
an  interpretation  at  once  of  the  Scriptures  and  of  human  want. 

Now  no  one  calls  in  question  the  profound  spiritual  in- 
fluence of  Christ  where  He  is  preached  as  the  propitiation  of 
God,  and  those  who  believe  the  doctrine  of  a  substitutionary 
atonement  lift  up  the  cross  as  the  sole  appointed  means  of 
reaching  and  saving  the  lost.  They  object  only  when  "  the 
moral  influence  theory  "  is  presented  as  a  sufficient  account  of 
the  atonement,  to  the  denial  that  the  work  of  Christ  has  ren- 
dered God  propitious  towards  man.  One  may  appreciate  the 
moon  without  wishing  that  it  put  out  the  sun  and  stars. 

The  advocates  of  this  theory,  in  order  to  make  it  an  ade- 
quate explanation  of  the  atonement,  must  clear  the  doctrine  of 
substitution  out  of  the  way.  They  attempt  to  do  this  by  ad- 
vancing many  arguments,  only  two  of  which  need  detain  us 
here,  since,  these  removed,  the  others,  of  lighter  moment,  will 
fall  of  themselves. 

First,  it  is  said  that  the  doctrine  of  substitution  supposes 
that  which  is  impossible.  Guilt  cannot  be  transferred  from 
one  person  to  another.  Punishment  and  penalty  cannot  be 
transferred  from  a  guilty  person  to  an  innocent  one.  An  in- 
nocent person  may  be  charged  with  sin,  but  if  so  he  will  be 
innocent  still,  and  not  guilty. 

An  innocent  person  may  suffer,  but  if  so  his  suffering  will 


The  Atonement  263 

not  be  punishment  or  penalty.  Such  is  the  objection:  the 
Christian  world,  in  believing  that  a  substitutionary  atonement 
has  been  made  by  Christ,  believes  a  thing  which  is  contrary 
to  the  necessary  laws  of  thought. 

The  reader  will  observe  that  this  objection  has  to  do  wholly 
with  the  definitions  of  the  words  guilt  and  punishment  and 
penalty.  It  is  perhaps  worthy  the  serious  attention  of  the 
theologian  who  wishes  to  keep  his  terms  free  from  offence; 
but  it  has  no  force  beyond  the  sphere  of  verbal  criticism.  It  is 
true  that  guilt,  in  the  sense  of  personal  blameworthiness,  can- 
not be  transferred  from  the  wrong-doer  to  the  well-doer.  It  is 
true  that  punishment,  in  the  sense  of  penalty  inflicted  for  per- 
sonal blameworthiness,  cannot  be  transferred  from  the  wrong- 
doer to  the  well-doer.  This  is  no  discovery,  and  it  is  main- 
tained as  earnestly  by  those  who  believe  in  a  substitutionary 
atonement  as  those  who  deny  it. 

Let  us  use  other  words,  if  these  are  not  clear,  but  let  us  hold 
fast  the  truth  which  they  were  once  used  to  express.  The 
v/orld  is  so  constituted  that  it  bears  the  idea  of  substitution 
engraved  upon  its  very  heart.  No  man  or  woman  or  child 
escapes  from  suffering  inflicted  for  the  faults  of  others.  In 
thousands  of  instances  these  substitutionary  sufferings  are  as- 
sumed voluntarily,  and  are  useful.  Husbands  suffer  in  order  to 
deliver  wives  from  sufferings  richly  deserved.  Wives  suffer  in 
order  to  deliver  husbands  from  sufferings  richly  deserved.  Chil- 
dren suffer  in  order  to  deliver  parents  from  sufferings  richly 
deserved.  Parents  suffer  in  order  to  deliver  children  from  suf- 
ferings richly  deserved.  Pastors  often  shield  guilty  churches  in 
this  way,  and  sometimes  at  the  cost  of  life.  Statesmen  often 
shield  guilty  nations  in  this  way,  and  sometimes  at  the  cost  of 
life.  If  now  we  shall  teach  that  Christ  suffered  in  order  to  de- 
liver us  from  sufferings  which  we  richlydeserved,  we  shall  avoid 
a  strife  about  words,  and  shall  maintain  that,  coming  into  the 
world  as  a  member  of  our  race,  He  suffered  to  the  utmost,  as 
many  other  heroic  souls  have  suffered  in  a  lesser  degree,  by 
subjecting  Himself  to  be  a  common  rule  of  vicarious  suffer- 


264      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

ing,  instituted  by  God  in  the  formation  of  human  society 
bound  together  by  ties  of  sympathy  and  love,  and  existing 
in  daily  operation  from  the  dawn  of  history  till  this  present 
time. 

The  vicarious  sufferings  by  means  of  which  the  innocent 
deliver  the  guilty  from  sufferings  richly  deserved  are  fre- 
quently assumed  in  the  fear  that  overmuch  of  grief  will  harden 
the  culprit  and  in  a  hope  that  a  stay  of  judgment  and  the  soft- 
ening lapse  of  time  may  lead  him  to  better  things.  May  we 
not  believe  that  Christ  was  affected  by  a  similar  motive,  and 
has  produced  that  delay  of  the  divine  justice  at  which  every 
thoughtful  person  wonders?  But  the  vicarious  sufferings 
which  we  observe  in  the  world  are  frequently  assumed  for  a 
stronger  reason,  in  the  belief  that  the  culprit  already  shows 
signs  of  relenting,  and  in  the  assurance  that  patient  waiting, 
even  at  great  cost,  will  be  rewarded  with  the  development  of 
the  tender  beginnings  of  a  new  life  which  the  thunder-storms 
of  untempered  equity  might  destroy.  So  it  was  predicted  of 
Christ  before  His  coming  that  ''  He  should  see  of  the  travail 
if  His  soul  and  be  satisfied." 

Thus  if  Christ  suffered  in  order  to  deliver  us  from  suffer- 
ings which  we  richly  deserved,  it  was  also  in  order  to  deliver 
us  from  sin  by  reason  of  which  we  deserved  them. 

The  second  argument  by  means  of  which  the  advocates  of 
"  the  moral  influence  theory  "  seek  to  refute  the  doctrine  of  a 
substitutionary  atonement  is  equally  unfortunate  with  the  first, 
in  that,  like  the  first,  it  criticizes  words,  rather  than  the 
thoughts  which  they  are  employed  to  express.  The  doctrine 
of  a  substitutionary  atonement,  it  is  said,  is  immoral.  Let  us 
inquire  what  this  immoral  doctrine  is.  The  doctrine,  it  is 
answered,  is  that  our  guilt  was  transferred  to  Christ  and  that 
He  was  punished  for  our  sins.  Here  again  let  us  "  strive  not 
about  words."  Let  us  admit  that  the  theologian  might  well 
express  himself  in  other  terms,  which  would  create  no  preju- 
dice against  his  meaning.  But,  if  he  amends  his  statement, 
let  him  retain  every  part  of  his  meaning.    Let  him  say  that 


The  Atonement  265 

Christ  suffered  in  order  that  guilty  man  might  escape  from 
sufferings  richly  deserved.  Is  this  teaching  immoral?  Then 
the  constitution  of  the  human  race,  ordained  by  God,  is  im- 
moral, for,  since  its  ties  are  those  of  sympathy  and  love,  human 
beings  are  constantly  suffering  that  others  may  escape  suffer- 
ings richly  deserved.  Then  sympathy  is  immoral,  for  this  is 
what  it  does.  Then  love  is  immoral,  for  this  is  what  it  does. 
Then  the  best  persons  are  the  most  immoral,  for  they  do  this 
oftener  than  others. 

The  objector  does  not  maintain  that  the  doctrine  of  a  sub- 
stitutionary atonement  has  equally  produced  immorality 
wherever  it  has  been  proclaimed.  He  does  not  venture  to  test 
his  charge  by  an  appeal  to  history.  The  appeal  would  be 
fatal.  For  nineteen  hundred  years,  the  only  great  moral  ad- 
vances of  the  human  race  have  been  brought  about  by  the 
preaching  of  a  substitutionary  atonement.  "  A  tree  is  known 
by  its  fruits."  It  is  impossible  that  a  doctrine  essentially  im- 
moral should  be  the  cause  of  morality  among  men. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  "  the  moral  influence  theory  "  and  con- 
sider why  it  ought  not  to  be  accepted  as  an  adequate  account 
of  the  atonement. 

As  a  complete  theory  of  the  atonement  it  is  far  too  narrowly 
circumscribed,  and  too  near  the  surface.  Were  it  universally 
adopted,  it  would  be  the  end  of  thought  on  this  high  theme. 
The  substitutionary  atonement  promises  an  eternity  of  delight- 
ful progress  in  study.  It  cannot  be  exhausted.  All  the  the- 
ories which  have  been  advanced  to  cast  light  upon  it  are  valu- 
able, but  they  leave  a  whole  universe  to  be  explored,  and  one 
may  hope  to  extend  the  field  of  discovery  at  any  time.  To  shut 
us  out  of  this  boundless  prospect,  and  limit  us  to  the  petty  con- 
fines of  "  the  moral  influence  theory  "  would  be  to  shrivel  the 
ocean  to  the  dimensions  of  a  pond,  and  bid  the  admiral  sail  his 
navies  in  it,  or  to  blot  out  all  the  worlds  save  those  of  the  solar 
system  and  bid  the  astronomer  enlarge  his  science. 

As  the  adoption  of  this  circumscribed  view  would  be  the  end 
of  thought,  so  it  would  be  the  end  of  emotion.     The  heart 


266      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

has  always  been  kindled  by  the  preaching  of  a  Christ  who  bore 
our  sins  before  God  on  the  cross.  By  this  truth  the  hardened 
sinner  has  been  subdued  and  in  it  the  penitent  sinner  has  found 
a  source  of  rapture.  An  atonement  of  infinite  cost,  flowing 
from  infinite  love,  moving  an  infinite  God,  and  procuring  de- 
liverance from  infinite  loss,  melts  the  coldest  heart  and  in- 
flames  the  warmest.  To  preach  a  lesser  sacrifice  would  be  to 
spread  frost  instead  of  fire. 

But  the  will  is  reached  through  the  reason  and  the  emotions. 
That  which  would  cease  to  challenge  profound  thought  and 
would  put  out  the  flames  of  emotion  would  fail  to  reach  the  will 
and  transform  the  life.  The  theory  makes  the  death  of  Christ 
predominantly  scenic,  spectacular,  an  effort  to  display  the  love 
of  God,  rather  than  an  offering  to  God  in  its  nature  necessary 
for  the  salvation  of  man.  It  struggles  in  vain  to  find  a  worthy 
reason  for  the  awful  sacrifice.  Hence  it  may  be  charged  with 
essential  immorality.  In  any  case,  the  work  of  Christ,  if  in- 
terpreted in  this  manner,  will  not  prove  ''  the  power  of  God 
unto  salvation."  The  speculation  is  called  "  the  moral  influence 
theory,"  but  when  preached  as  an  exclusive  theory  of  the  atone- 
ment, it  is  incapable  of  wielding  any  profound  moral  influence. 
The  man  who  dies  to  rescue  one  whom  he  loves  from  death  is 
remembered  with  tears  of  reverence  and  gratitude;  the  man 
who  puts  himself  to  death  to  show  that  he  loves  is  remembered 
with  horror. 

Still  further.  The  chief  failure  of  those  who  advance  this 
view  is  in  the  sphere  of  exegesis.  The  Bible  is  so  full  of  a 
substitutionary  atonement  that  the  reader  comes  upon  it 
everywhere.  The  texts  which  teach  it  are  not  rare  and  isolated 
expressions;  they  assemble  in  multitudes;  they  rush  in  troops; 
they  occupy  every  hill  and  every  valley.  They  occasion  the 
greatest  embarrassment  to  those  who  deny  that  the  relation 
of  God  to  the  world  is  determined  by  the  cross,  and  various 
methods  are  employed  by  various  writers  to  reduce  their  num- 
ber and  their  force.  They  are  most  abundant  in  the  epistles  of 
the  apostle  Paul,  and  some  depreciate  his  authority  as  a  teacher 


The  Atonement  267 

of  Christianity.  The  doctrine  is  implied  in  the  words  which 
our  Lord  uttered  at  the  last  supper,  and  some  attack  these  as 
not  genuine.  Christ  is  repeatedly  declared  to  be  a  propitia- 
tion. ''  Whom  God  hath  set  forth  to  be  a  propitiation,  through 
faith,  by  His  blood,"  Rom.  3 :  25.  *'  He  is  the  propitiation  for 
our  sins,  and  not  for  ours  only,  but  also  for  the  whole  world," 
I  John  2:3.  "  God  sent  His  son  to  be  a  propitiation  for  our 
sins,"  I  John  4:10.  ''  Wherefore  it  behooved  Him  in  all  things 
to  be  made  like  unto  His  brethren,  that  He  might  be  a  merciful 
and  faithful  high  priest  in  things  pertaining  to  God,  to  make 
propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the  people,"  Heb.  2:  17.  Many 
special  pleas  are  entered  against  the  plain  meaning  of  these 
declarations.  It  does  not  seem  difficult  to  understand  them. 
A  propitiation  must  be  an  influence  which  renders  some  one 
propitious,  and  the  person  rendered  propitious  by  it  must  be 
the  person  who  was  offended.  Yet  some  representatives  of  the 
theory  do  not  hesitate  to  affirm  that  these  texts  regard  man  as 
the  only  being  propitiated  by  the  cross.  Special  tortures  are 
applied  to  many  other  Scriptures  to  keep  them  from  proclaim- 
ing a  substitutionary  atonement.  Christ  is  ''  the  Lamb  of  God, 
which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world,"  John  i :  29.  "  The 
Son  of  Man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister, 
and  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many,"  Matt.  20:  28;  Mk. 
10:45.  "  Him  who  knew  no  sin  He  made  to  be  sin  on  our 
behalf,  that  we  might  become  the  righteousness  of  God  in 
Him,"  2  Cor.  5:21.  Such  are  a  few  examples  of  the  countless 
declarations  of  a  substitutionary  atonement  which  the  Scrip- 
tures make,  and  with  which  those  who  reject  the  doctrine 
strive  in  vain.  Any  speculation  which  sets  itself  against  this 
mighty  current  flowing  through  all  the  Bible  is  destined  to  be 
swept  away. 

Yet  further.  A  theological  theory,  like  a  person,  should  be 
judged  somewhat  by  the  company  it  keeps.  If  it  shows  an  in- 
veterate inclination  to  associate  with  other  theories  which  lie 
wholly  upon  the  surface,  which  too  are  easy  of  comprehension, 
which  sound  no  depths  and  solve  no  problems,  and  which  the 


268      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

profoundest  Christian  experience  rejects,  it  is  evidently  the 
same  in  kind. 

The  theory  which  I  am  here  studying  tends  to  consort  with 
an  inadequate  view  of  inspiration,  and  some  of  its  represent- 
atives question  the  inerrancy  of  the  Scripture,  even  in  the 
matters  pertaining  to  faith  and  conduct.  It  tends  to  consort 
with  an  inadequate  view  of  God,  and  some  of  its  representa- 
tives in  praising  His  love,  forget  His  hoHness  and  His  awful 
wrath  against  incorrigible  wrong-doers.  It  tends  to  consort 
with  an  inadequate  view  of  sin,  and  some  of  its  representa- 
tives make  the  alienation  of  man  from  God  consist  merely  in 
acts,  rather  than  in  an  underlying  state  from  which  they  pro- 
ceed. It  tends,  finally,  to  consort  with  an  inadequate  view  of 
responsibility  and  guilt,  and  some  of  its  representatives  teach 
that  these  cease  when  the  sinner  turns,  so  that  there  is  no  need 
of  propitiation,  but  only  for  repentance.  A  distinguished  rep- 
resentative of  this  theory  has  written  the  following  sentences : 
"  All  righteous  claims  are  satisfied  if  sin  is  done  away." 
"  Divine  law  is  directed  against  sin,  and  is  satisfied  when  sin 
is  made  to  cease."  "  If  grace  brings  an  end  of  sinning,  the 
end  sought  by  law  has  been  attained.  It  cannot  be,  therefore, 
that,  in  the  sight  of  God  there  is  any  need  of  satisfying  law 
before  grace  can  save  sinners."  These  words  are  like  the  voice 
of  "a  very  lovely  song;  "  but  many  a  pardoned  soul  uttered 
a  more  troubled  strain.  A  man  may  cease  to  sin  without  re- 
versing the  injury  he  has  wrought.  In  the  course  of  his  busi- 
ness, let  us  suppose,  he  has  defrauded  widows  and  orphans, 
and  they  are  now  dead.  Or,  in  his  social  life,  he  has  led  the 
young  into  unbelief  and  vice,  and  they  now  laugh  at  his  efforts 
to  undo  mischief,  or  have  gone  into  eternity  unsaved.  In 
a  sense  his  sinning  has  come  to  an  end,  yet  its  baleful  effects 
are  in  full  career.  His  conscience  tells  him  he  is  responsible 
not  only  for  the  commission  of  his  sins,  but  for  the  ruin 
wrought  by  his  sins.  In  other  words,  he  is  responsible  for  the 
entire  train  of  evils  which  he  has  put  into  operation.     The 


The  Atonement  269 

depths  of  his  responsibiHty  are  far  too  profound  for  such  light 
plummets  to  sound. 

These  are  some  of  the  reasons  which  lead  the  Christian 
world  as  a  whole  to  reject ''  the  moral  influence  theory  "  of  the 
atonement  as  inadequate. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  set  forth  any  substitutionary  theory  of 
the  atonement.  It  is  not  absolutely  necessary  that  we  have  a 
theory.  It  may  be  enough  for  us  to  hold  the  doctrine  without 
a  theory.  The  writers  of  the  New  Testament  did  this.  The 
earliest  fathers  of  the  church  did  it.  The  world  has  been  pro- 
foundly influenced  by  the  preaching  of  the  doctrine  before  the 
leaders  of  the  church  began  to  construct  a  theory.  What  was 
done  in  the  first  century  may  be  done  in  the  twentieth.  We 
may  proclaim  Christ  as  the  sin-bearer  and  win  multitudes  to 
Him  without  a  theory.  Men  will  welcome  the  fact,  even  in 
the  absence  of  an  explanation,  as  the  famishing  welcome  water 
without  asking  about  its  chemical  composition. 

Yet  the  Christian  thinker  will  never  cease  to  seek  for  an 
adequate  theory  of  the  atonement,  and  it  may  be  well  for  us  to 
consider  some  of  the  conditions  with  which  it  is  necessary  for 
him  to  comply  in  order  to  succeed  in  casting  any  new  light 
upon  this  divine  mystery. 

Firstly.  Any  theory  of  the  atonement,  to  be  adequate,  must 
proceed  from  a  fair  and  natural  interpretation  of  all  the 
Biblical  statements  on  the  subject.  It  must  not  pick  and 
choose  among  them.    It  must  not  throttle  any  into  silence. 

Secondly.  It  must  make  use  of  the  thought  which  other  gen- 
erations have  found  helpful.  It  must  not  discard  these  old  ma- 
terials. Though  they  are  not  a  completed  building,  they  con- 
stitute a  foundation  which  we  cannot  afford  to  destroy.  They 
may  be  covered  over  with  an  accumulation  of  verbal  infelici- 
ties from  which  we  must  set  them  free;  but  who  would  ad- 
vance our  knowledge  of  the  peace  made  for  us  by  Christ  must 
not  disdain  to  build  upon  them. 

Thirdly.  An  adequate  theory  of  the  atonement  will  take 


270     Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

account  of  all  the  moral  attributes  of  God,  for  all  are  con- 
cerned in  our  salvation.  It  will  find  the  chief  motive  of  the 
atonement  in  the  love  of  God,  who  ''  so  loved  the  world  that 
He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son,"  John  3:16.  It  will  find  one 
necessity  of  the  atonement  in  the  righteousness  of  God,  who 
*'  set  forth  "  Christ  "  to  be  a  propitiation,  through  faith  in  His 
blood,  to  show  His  righteousness,  because  of  the  passing  over 
of  the  sins  done  aforetime,  in  the  forbearance  of  God :  for  the 
showing  of  His  righteousness  at  this  present  season;  that  He 
might  Himself  be  just  and  the  justifier  of  him  that  hath  faith 
in  Jesus,"  Rom.  3 :  25,  26.  It  will  find  one  effect  of  the  atone- 
ment in  the  aversion  from  man  of  the  wrath  of  God,  the  prod- 
uct of  love  and  righteousness  outraged  by  sin :  "  While  we 
were  yet  sinners  Christ  died  for  us.  Much  more  then,  being 
now  justified  by  His  blood,  shall  we  be  saved  from  wrath 
through  Him,"  Rom.  5  :  9. 

Fourthly.  An  adequate  theory  of  the  atonement  will  accord 
with  a  profound  Christian  experience.  It  will  not  toy  with 
Socinian  interpretations  of  the  Godhead,  for  the  doctrine  of 
the  trinity  is  the  product  not  only  of  a  sound  exegesis  and  a 
sound  philosophy,  but  also  of  a  sound  Christian  experience.  It 
will  not  picture  God  as  a  Father  in  a  sense  which  would  deny 
His  kinship,  as  a  weak-minded  Father  who  bewails  the  rebel- 
lion of  His  children  but  has  no  courage  to  wield  the  rod.  It 
will  not  cover  His  face  with  feeble  smiles  or  inane  tears  and 
deny  to  it  the  frowns  of  wrath,  for  a  profound  Christian  ex- 
perience pronounces  such  portraitures  untrue.  It  will  not  join 
those  excellent  Christians  who  see  in  sin  only  a  temporary 
fault,  a  disease  of  the  surface,  the  product  chiefly  of  circum- 
stances, and  probably  a  necessary  stage  in  the  progress  of  man 
to  higher  things,  for  these  roseate  hues  are  known  to  be  de- 
ceitful by  all  who  have  entered  earnestly  into  battle  with  the 
corruption  of  our  nature  and  have  achieved  any  great  moral 
triumphs.  It  will  not  diminish  the  guilt  of  the  transgressor, 
for  it  is  the  pardoned  transgressor  who  knows  best  the  awful 
demerit  of  his  deeds  and  of  the  state  of  alienation  from  God 


The  Atonement 


271 


from  which  they  issued.  In  short,  it  will  take  into  account  the 
judgment  of  those  wise  souls  who  have  learned  ''  the  deep 
things  of  God  "  in  much  spiritual  conflict,  and  will  reach  con- 
clusions acceptable  to  them. 

Fifthly.  An  adequate  theory  of  the  atonement  will  view  the 
sacrifice  of  Christ  as  an  event  planned  from  eternity,  and  ef- 
fectual with  God  from  eternity.  He  is  "  the  Lamb  that  hath 
been  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world,"  Rev.  13:8.  He 
"  was  foreknown  before  the  foundation  of  the  world,  but 
manifested  at  the  end  of  the  times,"  i  Pet.  i :  20.  Sin  did  not 
take  God  by  surprise  when  it  entered  Eden;  He  had  foreseen 
it,  and  had  provided  a  Redeemer  before  it  had  led  us  captive. 

Sixthly.  An  adequate  theory  of  the  atonement  will  take  a 
broader  view  of  the  self-sacrifice  of  Christ  than  that  once  pre- 
sented to  us.  His  self-sacrifice  culminated  in  His  death,  and 
we  speak  of  that  very  properly  as  His  atonement.  But  His 
self-sacrifice  had  other  features  which  we  must  not  forget. 

It  had  two  principal  moments,  one  in  eternity,  and  the  other 
in  time.  The  first  was  the  laying  aside  of  some  of  His  divine 
attributes  that  He  might  take  our  nature;  the  second  was  the 
endurance  of  the  evils  of  human  life  and  death,  which  He 
would  not  remove  from  His  lot  by  miracle.  Both  are  brought 
before  us  in  the  statement  that,  "  being  in  the  form  of  God,  He 
counted  it  not  a  prize  to  be  on  an  equality  with  God,  but  emptied 
Himself,  taking  the  form  of  a  bond-servant,  being  made  in  the 
likeness  of  men;  and  being  found  in  fashion  as  a  man.  He  hum- 
bled Himself,  becoming  obedient  even  as  far  as  unto  death,  yea 
the  death  of  the  cross,"  (Phil.  2:6-8).  And  all  this  pathetic 
history  of  self-sacrifice  is  rendered  yet  more  pathetic  when  we 
reflect  that  He  anticipated  His  sufferings  from  eternity  and 
moved  forward  in  the  creation  and  government  of  the  universe, 
with  the  vision  of  His  coming  sorrows  ever  before  His  eyes. 

We  can  form  no  conception  of  the  cost  at  which  He  laid 
aside  some  of  His  divine  attributes  to  become  incarnate.  We 
can  form  but  little  conception  of  the  cost  at  which  He  died  for 
the  world.  No  mere  man  ever  laid  down  His  life  for  others  in 


272      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

the  sense  in  which  Christ  laid  down  His  life  for  the  world. 
Every  man  must  die  at  some  time ;  "  there  is  no  discharge  in 
that  warfare."  When  a  man  sacrifices  his  life  he  does  but  sac- 
rifice a  few  days  or  years ;  he  does  but  lay  it  down  earlier  in- 
stead of  later.  But  Christ  did  not  choose  between  dying  at 
one  time  rather  than  at  another;  He  chose  between  dying  and 
not  dying.  Thus,  viewed  in  any  light  whatever,  the  voluntary 
sufferings  of  Christ  surpass  our  powers  of  thought  and  imag- 
ination, reaching  infinitely  beyond  all  human  experience. 

Seventhly.  An  adequate  theory  of  the  atonement,  will  make 
much  of  the  effect  produced  upon  God  by  the  infinite,  volun- 
tary, and  unselfish  sacrifice  of  Christ  for  the  world.  Here  all 
human  language  breaks  down,  and  it  sounds  feeble  to  say  that 
God  admires  with  the  utmost  enthusiasm  this  holy  and  heroic 
career  of  suffering  for  the  salvation  of  man.  Yet  we  must  use 
such  words,  though  they  are  cold.  The  Scriptures  speak  of 
His  attitude  toward  His  incarnate  Son  as  one  of  unbounded 
appreciation  and  approval,  and  tell  us  that  His  voice  was  heard 
repeatedly  from  heaven,  saying :  "  This  is  My  beloved  Son,  in 
whom  I  am  well  pleased."  When  we  say  that  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ  is  meritorious  with  God,  we  mean  that  it  calls  forth  His 
supreme  admiration.  Such  was  His  feeling  towards  it  as  He 
foresaw  it  from  eternity,  such  was  His  feeling  towards  it  as 
He  looked  upon  it  while  being  made,  and  such  is  His  feeling 
towards  it  now,  as  He  looks  back  upon  it  and  glorifies  Christ 
in  honour  of  it. 

Eighthly.  An  adequate  theory  of  the  atonement  will  find  that 
the  work  of  Christ  has  made  a  vast  difference  in  the  relations 
of  God  to  the  fallen  world.  It  was  infinite  in  the  love  which 
prompted  it  and  in  the  self-sacrifice  which  attended  it,  and 
hence  infinite  in  its  moral  value.  We  cannot  but  deem  it 
fitting  that  it  should  procure  for  the  world  an  administration 
of  grace.  Provided  for  eternity  and  efficacious  with  God 
from  eternity,  it  has  procured  an  administration  of  grace  from 
the  moment  when  the  first  sin  was  committed. 

No  doubt  it  is  for  this  reason  that  God  has    suffered    the 


The  Atonement  273 

world  to  stand  through  all  the  ages  of  its  rebellious  history. 
He  has  looked  upon  it  from  the  beginning  in  Christ,  and  hence 
has  treated  it  with  forbearance,  with  love,  with  mercy.  It  did 
not  first  come  under  grace  when  Christ  was  crucified;  it  has 
always  been  under  grace,  because  Christ  has  always  offered  His 
sacrifice  in  the  plan  and  purpose  of  God,  and  thus  has  always 
exercised  a  propitiatory  influence.  The  grace  of  God  towards 
man  was  not  fully  revealed  and  explained  till  it  was  made 
manifest  in  the  person  and  work  of  Christ,  but  it  has  always 
been  the  reigning  principle  of  the  divine  government.  Men 
are  saved  by  grace  since  the  death  of  Christ,  and  they  have 
always  been  saved  by  grace  when  they  have  been  saved  at  all. 
The  entire  argument  of  the  apostle  Paul  in  his  epistles  to  the 
Romans  and  the  Galatians  has  for  its  purpose  the  defense  of 
the  proposition  that  God  has  always  justified  men  by  grace 
through  faith,  and  that  there  has  never  been  any  other  way  of 
salvation.  The  entire  administration  of  God  in  human  history 
is  set  forth,  in  the  light  of  "  the  Lamb  that  hath  been  slain 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world,"  as  one  of  infinite  kindness 
and  leniency,  notwithstanding  those  severities  which  have  ex- 
pressed His  abhorrence  of  sin. 

But  if  the  self-sacrifice  of  Christ  has  made  a  difference  in  the 
practical  attitude  of  God  towards  the  world,  it  has  also  made 
a  difference  in  His  feeling  towards  the  world.  God  is  one.  He 
is  not  at  war  within  Himself.  He  is  not  a  hypocrite.  He  has 
not  one  course  of  action  and  a  different  course  of  feeling.  If 
He  has  dealt  patiently  and  graciously  with  our  sinning  race,  it 
is  because  He  has  felt  patient  and  gracious,  and  the  work  of 
His  Son,  by  means  of  which  His  administration  has  been  rend- 
ered patient  and  gracious,  has  rendered  His  feeling  patient  and 
gracious. 

It  is  to  this  different  administration  and  to  its  basis  in  a 
different  feeling  that  the  Scriptures  refer  when  they  present 
Christ  to  us  as  "  the  propitiation  for  our  sins,  and  not  for  ours 
only,  but  for  the  whole  world." 


The  Atonement 


The  Atonement 


BY 

The  Reverend  JAMES  MUSCUTT  HODGSON,  M.A.,  D.Sc,  DD. 

THE  Life  and  Death  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  are  matters  of 
history,  the  interpretation  of  which  involves  problems 
for  Christian  Thought  of  unique  interest  and  importance,  but 
of  by  no  means  easy  solution.  The  Doctrine  of  the  Atonement 
is  the  attempt  to  set  forth  the  meaning,  purpose,  and  results  of 
the  historical  events. 

The  fundamental  distinction  between  historical  actuality  and 
spiritual  significance,  which  cannot  but  be  recognized  in  this  as 
in  every  other  department  of  Revealed  Truth,  has  sometimes 
been  inaccurately  presented  in  the  form  of  an  antithesis  between 
the  Fact  of  the  Atonement  and  the  Theory  of  the  Atonement. 
What  is  really  meant  by  the  Fact  of  the  Atonement,  in  this  con- 
nection, is  the  proposition  that  there  is  a  relation  between  the 
Death  of  Christ  and  the  Forgiveness  of  Sin  and  the  deliverance 
of  sinners  from  the  practice  and  power  of  Sin  and  their  restora- 
tion to  Righteousness  and  Fellowship  with  God.  But  in  mak- 
ing such  a  statement,  we  have  already  passed  beyond  the  facts 
of  actual  history  to  the  interpretation  of  the  facts.  There  is,  of 
course,  a  difference  between  the  assertion  that  some  relation 
exists  between  the  Life  and  Death  of  Christ  and  the  Forgive- 
ness and  Salvation  of  sinners,  and  the  further  attempt  to  ex- 
plain the  nature  of  that  relation.  But  the  recognition  of  any 
relation  or  connection  between  them  itself  involves  a  faith,  a 
conviction  which  is  capable  of  being  set  forth  in  the  form  of  an 
opinion  or  a  theory.  Moreover,  the  bare  assertion  that  the 
things  are  somehow  related  is  of  little  religious  value,  and  can- 
not be  regarded  as  materially  helping  to  an  intelligent  apprehen- 
sion and  adequate  appreciation  of  the  historical  events. 

Dr.  Horton  has  recently  said,  "  The  Life  and  Death  of  the 
Saviour  we  take  to  be  facts ;  the  recovery  of  men  and  women 
from  lives  of  shame  and  folly,  so  far  as  these  can  be  observed, 

277 


2/8      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

may  also  be  set  down  in  the  category  of  facts.  But  the  connec- 
tion between  these  two  series  traverses  a  vast  expanse  of  theory. 
At  all  events  when  we  are  discussing  this  connection  we  are 
moving  in  that  borderland  of  ideas  where  fact  passes  over  in- 
sensibly into  theory."  "  It  is  very  difficult  to  say  what  we 
mean  by  the  fact  of  the  Atonement  if  we  leave  everything  of  a 
theoretical  nature  out  of  account." 

The  Doctrine  of  the  Atonement  is  really  the  attempt  to  jus- 
tify the  affirmation  that  a  relation  does  exist  between  the  Life 
and  Death  of  Christ  and  the  Salvation  of  sinners,  by  the  pre- 
sentation of  that  which  is  regarded  as  an  intelligible  and  satis- 
factory statement  and  explanation  of  the  nature  of  the  relation 
in  which  we  are  constrained  to  believe  that  the  one  stands  to  the 
other. 

From  the  time  of  the  apostles  to  the  present  day,  it  has  been 
the  belief  and  conviction  of  almost  the  entire  community  of 
Christian  people  that  in  Christ  we  have  the  ground,  the  source, 
the  Agent  of  the  salvation  of  sinners.  But  in  the  interpreta- 
tion and  exposition  of  that  relation  there  has  not  been  by  any 
means  the  same  unanimity. 

The  apostle  Paul  clearly  and  emphatically  ascribes  all  the 
elements  and  phases  of  the  process  of  salvation  from  sin  and 
of  growth  in  righteousness  and  blessedness  to  the  work  of 
Christ.  The  release  of  the  sinner  from  the  bondage  of  sin, 
from  everything  that  prevents  or  hinders  him  in  the  attainment 
of  righteousness,  which  Paul  designates  by  the  term  "  Re- 
demption," is  due,  according  to  him,  to  Christ  who  "  gave  Him- 
self as  a  Ransom-price  for  all."  "  The  law  of  the  Spirit  of 
Life  in  Christ  hath  made  me  free  from  the  law  of  sin  and 
death."  "  The  Reconciliation  "  (or  the  Atonement,  according 
to  the  Authorized  version  in  the  only  passage  in  which  that 
word  occurs  in  the  New  Testament),  is  said  to  have  been  "  re- 
ceived through  Christ."  "  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the 
world  unto  Himself."  "  It  is  all  of  God  who  reconciled  us 
unto  Himself  through  Christ."  As  Prof.  Adeney  says,  ''  Sin 
consists  in  a  quarrel  between  man  and  God,  and  Christ  puts  an 


The  Atonement 


279 


end  to  that  quarrel,  and  brings  us  back  into  friendly  relations 
with  our  Father." 

Christ,  again,  is  said  to  have  been  set  forth  as  a  "  Propitia- 
tion," or  Mercy-seat,  where  God  shows  Himself  to  be  propi- 
tious, favorable,  and  merciful  to  men.  Under  the  Old  Dispen- 
sation, the  Mercy-seat  was  separated  from  the  Outer  Court,  in- 
dicating that  the  way  into  the  Holiest  of  all  was  not  yet  made 
manifest;  but  Christ,  the  real  Propitiatory,  is  set  forth  before 
all,  the  veil  having  been  rent  in  twain,  and  all  men  are  now 
freely  invited  to  draw  near. 

Christ,  it  is  also  declared,  "  is  made  unto  us  Sanctification ;  " 
He  is  the  power  by  which  the  progressive  development  of  the 
Christian's  character  and  life  is  brought  about.  **  If  Christ  is 
in  you,  the  spirit  is  life  because  of  righteousness."  Believers 
are  described,  moreover,  as  being  "  quickened  together  with 
Christ."  "  Arise  from  the  dead,  and  Christ  shall  give  thee 
life." 

In  short.  Salvation,  which  may  be  taken  as  denoting  the 
whole  process,  combining  all  the  aspects  and  elements  of 
Christ's  work  in  us  and  for  us,  is  everywhere,  in  the  Apostle's 
teaching,  connected  with  the  life  and  work  of  Christ.  **  We 
shall  be  saved  through  Him."  ''  Saved  by  His  life."  "  Christ 
Jesus  came  into  the  world  to  save  sinners."  In  all  respects,  in 
fact,  Christ  was  to  the  apostle  "  the  Power  of  God  unto  Salva- 
tion ;  "  His  was  the  only  name  given  under  heaven  among  men 
whereby  we  can  be  saved. 

In  Paul's  Doctrine  respecting  the  Mediatorial  Work  of 
Christ  special  emphasis  is  undoubtedly  laid  upon  His  Death. 
"  Christ  died  for  our  sins."  "  The  word  of  the  Cross  is  the 
Power  of  God."  "  Christ  died  for  us  that  we  should  live 
together  with  Him."  But  when  we  come  to  ask  how  it  is  that 
the  Death  of  Christ  helps  to  effect  the  salvation  of  sinners,  we 
do  not  find  in  Paul's  writings  any  definite  statement  or  theory. 
He  says  that  Christ  died  in  our  behalf,  and  on  behalf  of  our 
sins ;  but  he  does  not  say  that  He  died  in  our  stead,  that  He  was 
punished  instead  of  us,  or  that  He  suffered  the  death  that  our 


28o      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

sins  deserved  and  made  us  liable  to.  He  died  for  our  sins ;  He 
died  that  we  might  live;  that  is  as  far  as  the  apostle  goes  in 
explanation  of  the  connection  between  His  Death  and  our  For- 
giveness and  Salvation.  Love  for  us  was  the  impelling  motive 
which  led  Christ  to  lay  down  His  life,  and  He  laid  it  down  in 
order  that  He  might  deliver  us  from  the  bondage  and  wretched- 
ness of  sin  and  impart  to  us  freedom,  and  power,  and  life  for 
righteousness. 

Subsequent  theologians  have  proceeded  much  farther  in 
their  efforts  to  interpret  and  expound  the  nature  of  the  connec- 
tion between  the  Death  of  Christ  and  the  Salvation  from  Sin 
which  is  offered  to  men  through  Him.  Their  theories  as  to 
what  Christ  accomplished  by  dying  for  us  have  frequently  dis- 
played no  little  speculative  ingenuity, — sometimes  affording 
light  and  help,  but  in  other  cases  tending  to  obscurity  and  per- 
plexity, and  at  times  even  perverting  and  degrading  the  subject 
by  the  introduction  of  conceptions  essentially  immoral  and  un- 
v/orthy. 

An  extraordinary  theory  which  was  early  formulated,  and 
which  for  centuries  held  a  place  in  Christian  Thought,  was  that 
Christ's  Death  was  the  Ransom  paid  to  Satan  to  secure  the 
release  of  those  who  by  sin  had  become  his  captives. 

The  Doctrine  propounded  by  Anselm  in  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury was  a  distinct  improvement  upon  this.  His  contention 
was  that  the  attribute  of  Divine  Justice  demands  satisfaction 
for  the  sins  of  men,  and  that  the  purpose  of  Christ's  Death  was 
to  remove  this  obstacle  to  the  Forgiveness  and  Salvation  of  sin- 
ners. Dr.  Hodge  expresses  this  opinion  when  he  says,  "  In 
the  Old  Testament  and  in  the  New,  God  is  declared  to  be  just, 
in  the  sense  that  His  nature  demands  the  punishment  of  sin; 
and  that,  therefore,  there  can  be  no  remission  without  such 
punishment,  vicarious  or  personal." 

But  what  a  righteous  being  must  desire  to  secure  in  others 
is  their  righteousness.  Punishment  administered  by  righteous 
love  may  be  valuable  as  an  instrument  and  a  means  towards  at- 
taining this  end.     But  a  loving  and  merciful  being  can  have  no 


The  Atonement  281 

wish  that  pain  and  sorrow  should  continue  when  the  sin  and 
unrighteousness  are  abandoned. 

A  Loving  Being,  such  as  God  is  believed  to  be,  cannot  but 
forgive  the  sinner  who  repents  and  forsakes  his  sin.  So  far  as 
the  New  Testament  is  concerned,  the  word  "  Justice  "  never 
occurs,  and  there  need  be  no  hesitation  in  affirming  that  the 
notion  that  the  Justice  of  God  must  be  satisfied  by  the  infliction 
of  punishment  is  a  non-Scriptural,  and,  in  reality,  a  purely 
pagan  conception.  A  righteous  being  may  be  regarded  as 
bound  to  punish  sin  as  a  palpable  expression  of  his  disapproval 
of  it,  and  as  a  necessary  element  and  instrument  in  the  task  of 
destroying  sin,  of  separating  the  sinner  from  his  sin,  and  re- 
storing him  to  the  righteousness  of  loving,  trustful  loyalty.  But 
when  that  end  has  been  gained.  Righteousness  and  Justice  can- 
not be  thought  of  as  demanding  any  further  satisfaction. 

In  the  seventeenth  century,  Grotius  urged  a  modification  of 
this  Doctrine.  Rejecting  the  idea  of  the  absolute  necessity  of 
Satisfaction,  he  contended  for  what  is  described  as  relative  sat- 
isfaction. It  was  not,  he  held,  the  Divine  Nature  itself  which 
demanded  punishment,  but,  as  a  Ruler,  God  could  not  dispense 
with  punishment  without  some  provision  by  which  the  au- 
thority and  dignity  of  the  Moral  Law  should  be  maintained. 
But  this  theory  rests  upon  the  unwarranted  assumption  that 
God  occupies  a  relation  to  men  precisely  analogous  to  that  of  a 
human  ruler  to  his  subjects.  Under  human  governments,  the 
penal  sanctions  of  the  law  are  an  expedient  needed  for  the  sup- 
port of  its  enactments.  But  this  is  a  consideration  which  has 
no  place  in  respect  to  the  Divine  Law.  Moreover,  human 
rulers  simply  seek  by  the  fear  of  threatened  punishments  to  re- 
press wrong-doing  for  the  sake  of  others  than  the  criminals; 
whereas  God  seeks  to  subdue  the  evil  in  men's  hearts  and  to 
make  them  good  by  inspiring  the  love  of  goodness, — an  end 
which  punishment  alone  cannot  secure. 

A  cruder  and  more  offensive  type  of  doctrine,  confusedly 
combining  the  views  of  Anselm  and  of  Grotius,  has  been  largely 
prevalent  in  Protestant  Theology,  in  which  the  emphasis  has 


282       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

been  mainly  laid  upon  the  notion  of  Substitution  as  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  relation  between  the  Death  of  Christ  and  the  penal- 
ties deserved  by  sinners.  Luther,  in  his  commentary  on  Gala- 
tians  says,  **  God  "  sent  His  only  Son  into  the  world,  and  laid 
upon  Him  the  sins  of  all  men,  sa\-ing,  '  Thou  art  Peter,  that 
denier ;  Paul,  that  persecutor,  blasphemer,  and  cruel  oppressor ; 
David,  that  adulterer;  be  Thou  the  person  that  hath  committed 
the  sins  of  all  men.  See,  therefore,  that  Thou  pay  and  satisfy 
for  them; '  And  so  He  setteth  upon  Him  and  killeth  Him.'* 
Dr.  Hodge  contends  that  Christ  "  suffered  in  the  place  of  sin- 
ners. He  was  their  substitute.  He  assumed  their  obligation 
to  satisfy  justice.  What  He  did  and  suffered  precluded  the 
necessity  of  their  fulfilling  the  demands  of  the  law  in  their  own 
persons." 

This  conception,  which  unfortunately  has  obtained  popular 
acceptance,  in  many  quarters,  not  only  assumes  that  the  inflic- 
tion of  suffering  and  death  was  demanded  either  by  some  prin- 
ciple of  abstract  justice  or  by  the  majesty  and  authority  of  the 
Law,  but  affirms  an  actual  transference  of  the  penalties  of  sin 
and  of  the  Divine  displeasure  which  they  reveal,  from  the  guilty 
to  the  innocent,  which  is  utterly  repugnant  to  the  primary  in- 
stincts of  the  Moral  Sense  and  really  subversive  of  the  very 
foundations  of  Moral  Order.  As  Dr.  Dale  has  said,  "  If  we 
attempt  to  construct  a  theory  of  the  Death  of  Christ  on  the  hy- 
pothesis that  it  corresponds  to  what  would  occur  in  the  admin- 
istration of  human  justice  if  some  illustrious  man  died  as  a 
substitute  for  a  number  of  obscure  persons  who  had  been  guilty 
of  treason,  we  are  confronted  at  once  by  an  objection  which 
admits  of  no  reply.  Such  a  substitute  could  not  be  admitted. 
It  would  be  contrary  to  the  principle  of  justice,  and  in  the  high- 
est degree  injurious  to  the  state." 

Under  cover  of  the  term  "  Propitiation,"  which  has  been 
very  freely  employed  as  descriptive  of  the  Work  of  Christ,  an- 
other strangely  perverted  and  unworthy  conception  has  been 
permitted  to  lay  hold  of  the  minds  of  many.  It  has  been  sup- 
posed that  by  the  sacrificial  Death  of  Christ,  the  wrath  of  God 


The  Atonement  283 

was  appeased,  and  He  was  induced  to  extend  to  sinful  men  the 
grace  and  pity  which,  without  that  sacrifice.  He  would  not,  or 
could  not  have  manifested  towards  them.  And  yet  in  one  of 
the  two  passages  in  the  ist  Epistle  of  John  in  which  alone  the 
word  ''  propitiation  "  occurs  in  the  New  Testament,  the  apostle 
distinctly  says,  "  Herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved  God,  but 
that  He  loved  us,  and  sent  His  Son  to  be  the  propitiation  for 
our  sins."  As  McLeod  Campbell  has  said,  "  The  Scriptures 
do  not  represent  the  love  of  God  to  man  as  the  effect,  and  the 
Atonement  as  the  cause,  but  just  the  contrary;  the  love  of  God 
as  the  cause,  and  the  Atonement  as  the  effect." 

On  the  other  hand,  what  is  called  the  Moral  Influence  Theory 
of  the  Power  and  Work  of  Christ,  whilst  true  as  far  as  it  goes, 
cannot  be  regarded  as  an  adequate  one.  One  great  purpose 
and  result  of  Christ's  Mission  undoubtedly  was  to  reveal  the 
forgiving  and  self-sacrificing  love  of  God,  to  "  declare  the  Fa- 
ther's name."  Indeed,  what  sinners  need,  first  of  all,  is  to  be 
assured  that  God  really  loves  and  pities  them ;  that  He  is  will- 
ing and  waiting  to  forgive  and  forget  the  guilty  past  as  soon 
as  they  turn  to  Him  with  contrite  and  obedient  hearts ;  that  He 
is  "  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself,  not  imputing  their 
trespasses  unto  them."  And  as  Dr.  Fairbairn  has  said,  "  The 
sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  are  the  symbols  and  the  seals  of 
the  invisible  passion  and  sacrifice  of  the  Godhead."  They  ex- 
hibit God  "  as  a  Being  who  does  not  need  to  be  appeased  or 
moved  to  mercy,  but  who  suffers  unto  sacrifice  that  He  may 
save  us." 

The  particular  form  which  the  Divine  Sacrifice  of  Love  as- 
sumed was  that  of  participation  with  us  in  the  sorrows  and 
pains  which  are  our  common  inheritance  as  a  sinful  race.  The 
various  evils  which  we  endure  are  regarded  by  us,  in  our  con- 
sciousness of  sin  and  guilt,  as  an  experience  that  is  deserved  by 
us,  and  as  the  revelation  and  expression  of  the  displeasure  with 
which  God  regards  our  sin.  But  it  is  not  possible  to  conceive 
that  to  Christ  the  sufferings  which  He  bore  could  appear  in  the 
light  of  punishments  deserved  by  Him.     No  doubt,  the  burden 


284      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

that  He  accepted  would  be  recognized  by  Him  as  the  symbol 
and  demonstration  of  the  wrath  of  the  Holy  Father  against  sin 
and  unrighteousness;  and  in  His  human  consciousness  He 
keenly  realized  the  terrible  malignity  of  the  sin  from  which  He 
had  come  to  rescue  men. 

It  cannot,  however,  be  supposed  that  the  sacrifice  was  made, 
that  the  suffering  and  death  were  endured,  simply  for  the  pur- 
pose of  demonstrating  in  a  dramatic  fashion  the  grief  of  God 
on  account  of  sin  and  His  loving  pity  for  sinners.  The  Divine 
Love  was  manifested  for  a  practical  purpose, — in  order, 
namely,  to  the  supply  of  the  Power  and  the  Life  whereby  men 
may  forsake  sin  and  attain  righteousness  and  goodness.  The 
true  explanation  of  the  Life  and  Death  of  Christ  must  find  in 
them,  not  merely  a  Revelation  of  the  Truth  concerning  God, — 
of  His  forgiving  love,  but  also  a  truly  objective  element  which 
is  spiritually  vital  and  dynamic.  In  fact,  whether  appeal  be 
made  to  the  teaching  of  the  Scriptures,  or  to  the  experience  and 
testimony  of  those  who  have  been  helped,  and  saved,  and 
blessed  by  Christ,  we  cannot  avoid  the  conviction  that  Christ's 
work  on  our  behalf,  that  His  redemptive  action  within  us,  the 
help  and  life  of  which  His  Spirit  is  the  source,  go  far  beyond 
the  instruction  which  His  words,  or  the  Revelation  which  His 
Life  and  Death  afford,  and  beyond  the  moral  effects  which 
these  may  have  upon  our  hearts  and  lives.  "  Christ  liveth  in 
me."  "  I  can  do  all  things  through  Christ  who  strengtheneth 
me. 

Why,  in  order  to  the  impartation  of  spiritual  life  and 
strength,  such  sacrificial  suffering  as  that  of  our  Saviour's 
should  have  been  necessary,  we  may  not  be  able  clearly  and  ac- 
curately to  comprehend.  It  is,  in  fact,  involved,  we  may  well 
believe,  in  the  mystery  in  which  the  nature  and  the  origin  of  all 
life  are  enshrouded.  What  Christ  Himself  said  of  the  quick- 
ening of  spiritual  life  in  dead  souls,  applies,  with  at  least  equal 
force,  to  the  Divine  side  of  the  redemptive,  life-giving  process. 
"  The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and  thou  hearest  the  voice 
thereof,  but  knowest  not  whence  it  cometh,  nor  whither  it 


The  Atonement  285 

goeth;  so  is  every  one  that  is  born  of  the  Spirit."  If  the 
human  and  earthly  side  of  the  quickening  of  those  who  are 
"  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins,"  be  so  difficult  for  us  to  under- 
stand or  realize,  how  much  more  difficult  must  the  Divine  and 
heavenly  side  be  to  our  comprehension.  **  If  I  told  you  earthly 
things,  and  ye  believe  not,  how  shall  ye  believe  if  I  tell  you 
heavenly  things  ?  " 

We  may  say,  in  the  words  of  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott,  that 
"  Self-sacrifice  is  the  Divine  method  of  life-giving;  "  and,  per- 
haps, that  is  all,  or  nearly  all,  that  we  can  ever  hope  to  say  in 
the  direction  of  explaining  why,  in  becoming  "  the  author  of 
eternal  salvation,"  it  behoved  the  Christ  to  suffer.  "  Except  a 
grain  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and  die,  it  abideth  by  it- 
self alone,  but  if  it  die,  it  beareth  much  fruit."  Life  comes 
through  death;  spiritual  life  through  the  suffering  and  death 
of  loving  self-sacrifice.  In  the  death  of  sorrow  to  which  from 
love  for  us  He  submitted,  "  the  Blood  of  Christ  "  was  shed, — 
"  the  Spirit  of  Life  in  Christ  Jesus  "  is  now  poured  forth,  in 
order  that  by  the  impartation  of  that  spiritual  life  to  the  souls 
of  men,  and  by  its  in-dwelling  power  they  may  be  set  free  from 
the  bondage  of  sin  and  be  raised  to  a  life  of  righteousness  and 
blessedness. 


The  Atonement 


The  Atonement 

BY 

The  Reverend  HENRY  W.   PINKHAM 

GOD  must  be  at  least  as  good  as  an  average  man.  Jesus 
argued,  not  without  humour:  ''  If  ye  then,  being  evil, 
know  how  to  give  good  gifts  unto  your  children,  how  much 
more  shall  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  give  good  things  to 
them  that  ask  him  ?  "  The  best  in  human  nature  truly  reveals 
the  divine  nature.  God  is  the  creator.  His  creature  cannot 
surpass  Him.  The  fountain  must  be  at  least  as  high  as  the 
stream  that  flows  from  it.     Jesus'  argument  is  conclusive. 

But  human  nature  improves  from  generation  to  generation. 
The  race  is  in  a  process  of  spiritual  evolution.  The  average 
Christian  father  to-day  is  kinder  than  was  the  average  Jewish 
father  in  Jesus'  time.  The  divine  is  imaged  in  the  human 
more  and  more  as  the  centuries  pass.  Accordingly,  Jesus' 
theological  method  of  reasoning  from  the  human  to  the  divine 
leads  to  ever  nobler  conceptions  of  God  as  the  human  race 
itself  moves  forward.  The  prevailing  theology  at  any  given 
time  indicates  a  certain  stage  of  moral  progress  and  spiritual 
experience.  A  more  advanced  stage  requires  a  new  theology. 
As  a  species  out  of  harmony  with  its  environment  perishes,  so 
doctrines  that  have  become  repugnant  to  the  general  Christian 
consciousness  are  repudiated. 

The  moral  improvement  of  man  and  the  progressive  en- 
richment of  his  spiritual  experience  evidence  the  presence  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  The  theological  changes  that  result  should 
not  be  deplored  or  resisted  but  welcomed.  Theology  must  be  in 
harmony  with  moral  ideals,  it  must  correspond  with  actual  re- 
ligious experience,  if  it  would  minister  to  the  religious  life; 
otherwise  it  is  a  hindrance  and  a  stumbling-block.  Many  con- 
servatives do  not  sufficiently  recognize  this  fact.  An  undue 
reverence  for  the  past,  a  mistaken  use  of  the  Bible,  an  illogical 

289 


290       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

habit  of  mind,  and  a  deficient  sense  of  humour,  combine  to  make 
it  possible  to  hold  and  to  advocate  doctrines  that  imply  dis- 
positions in  God  which  the  average  Christian  would  be  ashamed 
to  acknowledge  in  himself.  Once  admit  that  God  is  no  worse 
than  an  ordinary  human  father  and — in  Jamie  Soutar's  words 
— "  half  o'  the  doctrines  wud  hae  to  be  reformed."  ^ 

The  history  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  well  illustrates 
how  dogmas  that  have  become  repugnant  to  the  moral  sense 
are  gradually  abandoned  for  better  ones.  The  ransom  theory 
prevailed  for  about  a  thousand  years.  Jesus  had  spoken  of 
giving  his  life  a  ransom  for  many;  to  whom  did  he  give  it? 
To  Satan,  answered  early  theologians :  by  the  sin  of  Adam  the 
human  race  had  become  the  legal  possession  of  Satan;  Satan 
was  willing  to  give  up  his  claim  to  mankind  if  Jesus  be  sur- 
rendered to  him  as  a  ransom;  the  bargain  was  made;  the  race 
was  set  free;  Satan,  however,  found  that  he  could  not  keep 
Jesus;  he  could  torture  and  kill  his  body,  but,  being  divine, 
Jesus  himself  escaped  and  returned  to  heaven.  The  Atone- 
ment was  thus  a  trade  between  God  and  Satan,  in  which  Satan 
got  cheated!  Served  him  right,  too,  for  had  he  not  deceived 
Eve  in  the  first  place? 

The  ransom  theory  has  entirely  disappeared.  It  is  a  cu- 
riosity in  the  museum  of  Christian  history.  Anselm,  in  the 
eleventh  century,  related  the  work  of  Jesus  with  the  righteous- 
ness of  God:  the  Atonement  was  a  transaction,  not  between 
God  and  Satan,  but  between  the  Father  and  the  Son.  An- 
selm's  theory  has  prevailed  to  the  present  time.  It  is  the  pop- 
ular view  and  long  will  be.  Yet,  in  whatever  form  presented, 
— commercial,  legal,  governmental,  or  sacrificial, — it  is  un- 
satisfactory to  many  Christians. 

It  has  been  taught  that  the  voluntary  death  of  Jesus  was  a 
work  of  supererogation  making  a  vast  treasury  of  merit  to  be 
drawn  upon  by  bankrupt  sinners,  enabling  them  to  square  their 
accounts  with  God;  that  God  credits  the  surplus  righteousness 
of  his  holy  Son  to  the  sinners  that  believe  on  Jesus.     It  has 

*  "  The  Days  of  Auld  Lang  Syne,"  by  Ian  Maclarcn,  p.  330. 


The  Atonement  291 

been  taught  that  Jesus  bore  the  penalty  of  human  sin;  that  God 
treated  his  perfect  Son  as  if  he  were  guilty  of  the  world's 
transgressions  and  therefore,  by  way  of  compensation,  will 
treat  believing  sinners  as  if  they  were  as  holy  as  his  perfect 
Son.  Such  explanations  of  Christ's  work  are  presented  even 
to-day  as  the  "  simple  Gospel."  They  are  simple.  They  are 
immoral  too,  and  their  logical  effect  is  evil.  To  be  sure,  the 
majority  of  men  are  not  logical,  and  gratitude  to  their  Saviour 
leads  many  to  seek  personal  holiness  who  stoutly  maintain  that 
Christ's  perfect  righteousness  is  to  be  credited  to  them  without 
regard  to  their  actual  merits;  nevertheless,  the  teaching  that 
Christ  was  the  sinner's  substitute  on  Calvary  and  will  be  his 
substitute  at  the  judgment,  is  hurtful,  lulling  to  sleep  many  a 
guilty  conscience,  and  kindling  a  vain  hope. 

The  truth  needs  emphasis  that  salvation  is  ethical;    it  is 
real,  not  make-believe;  not  a  legal  fiction  to  which  God  be- 
comes a  party.     God  does  not  call  black  white;    and  if  he 
should,  it  would  not  make  black  white, — it  would  be  simply 
telling  a  lie.      Righteousness  is  not  transferable  like  a  com- 
modity; it  cannot  be  put  on  like  a  borrowed  garment.     The 
Bible  nowhere  says  that  Christ's  righteousness  is  imputed  to 
the  believer.    The  believer's  own  faith  is  counted  as  righteous- 
ness,   but   that   is   because   faith    is   potential    righteousness. 
Faith  is  the  constructive  principle  of  character;  he  who  has 
sincerely  given  himself  to  Christ  has  started  on  the  way  to 
that  genuine  personal  holiness  for  which  there  can  be  no  sub- 
stitute.    Nor  is  moral  penalty  transferable.     Punishment  con- 
ceived of  as  an  external  thing  might  be  visited  upon  the  in- 
nocent; it  is  possible  for  a  man  to  go  to  prison,  or  to  the 
gallows,  in  the  place  of  a  friend  who  is  the  real  criminal.    But 
the  essence  of  moral  penalty  is  the  havoc  which  sin  makes  in 
the  moral  nature, — the  animalism,  the  depraved  tastes,   the 
heartless  selfishness,  the  devilish  meanness  in  which  a  course 
of  sin  culminates,  together  with  remorse  and  shame  and  the 
consciousness  of  alienation  from  God  and  all  holy  beings. 
That  the  sinless  Jesus  knew  aught  of  such  penalty  is  incon- 


292      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

ceivable.  To  punish  such  as  he  would  be  not  only  unjust  but 
impossible. 

Theories  of  the  Atonement  which  make  Christ's  sufferings 
penal  leave  no  place  for  genuine  forgiveness;  for  how  can 
there  be  pardon  of  that  whose  punishment  has  already  been 
inflicted?  To  avoid  this  difficulty,  Grotius,  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  suggested  that  the  sufferings  of  Jesus  were  not  strictly 
penal  but  served  the  purpose  of  penalty  in  expressing  to  the 
moral  universe  God's  hatred  of  sin  as  well  as  it  could  be  ex- 
pressed by  the  full  punishment  of  every  sinner;  save  for  some 
such  expression  the  offer  of  forgiveness  on  the  sole  condition 
of  repentance  might  lead  men  to  regard  sin  as  but  a  trifle, 
and  thus  the  gracious  purpose  of  God  be  defeated ;  for  an 
ethical  salvation — and  there  is  no  other — requires  that  the 
dreadfulness  and  hatefulness  of  sin  be  recognized.  This  view 
does  not  satisfy,  for  it  makes  Jesus  an  actor  presenting  an  im- 
pressive object-lesson.  Surely  God's  moral  government 
stands  in  no  need  of  a  dramatic  spectacle  to  keep  it  from  con- 
tempt. God's  direct  dealing  with  sin,  as  that  dealing  appears 
in  individual  and  social  experience,  shows  clearly  enough  his 
estimate  of  it. 

It  is  true,  however,  that  the  history  of  Jesus  affords  the 
most  startling  and  awful  revelation  of  the  hideousness  of  sin. 
That  the  one  faultless  person  who  has  appeared  on  this  earth, 
that  he  whose  life  was  an  unbroken  ministry  of  love,  should 
be  treated  as  Jesus  was  by  his  fellow-men,  is  an  appalling  com- 
mentary on  human  depravity.  The  evil  that  is  in  our  hearts 
declares  our  spiritual  kinship  with  the  murderers  of  Jesus. 
Here  is  a  man  who  discovers  that  he  has  a  taint  of  leprosy. 
As  yet  he  suffers  not  the  slightest  inconvenience.  He  would 
not  know  that  he  is  diseased  save  for  that  faintly  appearing 
spot  on  the  skin.  But  bring  him  face  to  face  with  one  in 
whom  leprosy  has  run  its  course,  leaving  its  victim  disfigured 
by  its  ravages  and  loathsome  with  its  foulness.  He  recoils  in 
horror,  and  shudderingly  exclaims,  ''Great  God!  Can  it  be 
that  I  have  in  me  that  disease?     Shall  I  reach  that  horrible 


The  Atonement 


293 


condition?  "  So  when  we  think  how  Jesus  was  taken  and  by 
wicked  hands  was  crucified  and  slain,  we  may  well  shudder; 
for  in  our  own  meanness,  cruelty,  bigotry, — which  we  have 
perhaps  esteemed  but  trifling  faults, — we  may  see  the  very 
same  seed  that  bore  its  legitimate  fruit  in  the  murder  of  the 
Sinless  One.  When  we  are  cruel,  we  join  the  company  of  those 
who  pressed  a  crown  of  thorns  on  Jesus'  brow,  who  buffeted 
him  with  their  hands,  and  spat  upon  him.  When  we  are 
narrow  and  bigoted,  more  eager  to  maintain  our  petty  au- 
thority than  to  know  and  to  obey  the  truth,  we  enrol  ourselves 
among  the  Pharisees  and  chief  priests  who  plotted  to  kill  the 
Son  of  God.  When  we  are  false,  rewarding  trust  with  treach- 
ery and  love  with  scorn,  we  are  claiming  as  our  master  Judas 
Iscariot  who  betrayed  his  friend  with  a  kiss. 

Moreover,  in  the  spiritual  anguish  of  Jesus  as  he  received 
the  full  shock  of  human  iniquity;  in  his  cry  of  wounded,  re- 
jected love — "  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem !  " — as  he  wept  over 
the  doomed  city;  in  the  agony  of  Gethsemane,  we  see  what 
sin  means  to  a  pure  soul,  what  torture  the  contact  with  it  pro- 
duces. 

"  My  sins,  my  sins,  my  Saviour ! 

Their  ;?uilt  I  never  knew 

Till,  with  thee,  in  the  desert, 

I    near    thy   passion    drew; 

Till,  with  thee,  in  the  garden, 

I   heard   thy  pleading  prayer, 

And  saw  the  sweat-drops  bloody. 

That  told  thy  sorrow  there." 

The  work  of  Christ  is  sometimes  explained  in  terms  de- 
rived from  the  sacrificial  system  of  the  Old  Testament.  Sac- 
rifice is  giving  to  God  something  precious.  The  ideas  of  ex- 
piation and  propitiation  are  not  necessarily  connected  with  it; 
a  sacrifice  may  be  purely  an  expression  of  gratitude  and  love. 
But  the  universal  sense  of  guilt,  and  the  effort  to  propitiate  a 
remorseful  conscience,  find  expression  in  sacrifices  whose  pur- 
pose is  to  conciliate  an  offended  God.  If  men  who  have  been 
wronged  can  be  appeased  by  seeing  the  wrong-doer  give  up 


294      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

something  dear  to  him,  or  by  seeing  him  endure  pain, — why 
not  God  ?  An  angry  man  may  find  relief  in  venting  his  wrath 
even  on  the  innocent,  in  scolding  his  wife,  kicking  the  dog,  or 
slamming  the  door.  But  God  should  not  be  conceived  of  in 
forms  evidently  derived  from  the  moral  imperfection  of  men. 
In  our  minds  there  may  sometimes  seem  to  be  a  conflict  be- 
tween the  claims  of  justice  and  of  mercy,  but  we  cannot  think 
there  is  any  such  conflict  in  the  divine  mind.  God's  justice  and 
his  mercy  have  the  same  object  in  view,  to  bring  man  from  sin 
to  holiness.  As  we  become  better  we  find  it  easier  to  forgive, 
on  the  sole  condition  of  repentance,  those  who  have  wronged 
us,  and  we  scout  the  thought  that  we  need  any  propitiation. 
Jesus  bade  his  disciples  forgive  a  brother  till  seventy  times 
seven,  if  he  repented.  Did  he  expect  them  to  be  more  for- 
giving than  God  himself.  The  doctrine  that  God  cannot  or 
will  not  forgive  sinners  save  on  account  of  a  bloody  offering 
is  passing  away.  Taught  by  the  spirit  of  Christ  good  men  find 
that  they  are  able  to  forgive  those  who  have  wronged  them. 
They  know  that  God  must  be  at  least  as  good  as  they  are,  and 
will  not  impute  to  him  a  relentlessness  of  which  they  them- 
selves would  be  ashamed. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Mosaic  legislation  with 
reference  to  sacrifices  is  regulative  rather  than  mandatory.^ 
Time  and  again  in  Israel's  history  prophets'  voices  were  raised 
in  ridicule  and  scorn  of  the  notion  that  God  could  be  pleased 
by  the  slaughter  of  animals.  The  work  of  men  like  Isaiah, 
Micah,  and  Amos,  was  not  quite  completed  by  the  Prophet  of 
Nazareth.  The  actual  offering  of  animals  has  ceased  indeed, 
but  the  idea  of  a  propitiatory  sacrifice  lingers,  and  what  Bush- 
nell  called  the  ''  slaughter-house  theory  of  the  Atonement " 
is  still  preached.^  Attention  is  directed  to  the  physical  blood 
of  Jesus,  as  if  it  had  a  magical  efficacy,  until  one  feels  like 
asking  whether,  if  the  Romans  had  inflicted  capital  punish- 

*  See  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott's  Commentary  on  Romans,  p.  65. 
•Dr.  Trumbull's  Reminiscences  of  Bushnell  in  Sunday  School  Times, 
Aug.  12,  1899. 


The  Atonement  295 

ment  by  the  gallows  instead  of  the  cross,  and  not  a  drop  of 
Jesus'  blood  had  been  shed,  there  would  then  be  no  salvation 
for  sinners.^ 

The  essence  of  the  Christian  revelation  is  that  God  is  a 
Christlike  being.  We  should  not  think  of  Christ  as  a  protec- 
tion from  God,  but  rather  as  the  perfect  expression  of  God's 
real  self.  Christ  did  not  come  to  buy  us  off  from  divine  wrath, 
but  to  show  us  divine  love;  not  to  appease  God,  but  to  assure 
us  that  God  does  not  need  to  be  appeased.  It  has  been  said, 
"  God  outside  of  Christ  is  a  consuming  fire ;  "  but  the  Christian 
knows  nothing  about  any  ''  God  outside  of  Christ ;  "  to  the 
Christian  the  God  that  is  in  Christ  is  the  only  God.  No  one 
reading  for  the  first  time  the  gospel  history  and  seeing  in  Jesus 
a  revelation  of  God,  would  think  of  saying,  ''  God  is  justice ;  " 
or,  as  theologians  have  said,  "  God  must  be  just,  he  may  be 
merciful."  One  would  say,  as  did  St.  John,  ''  God  is  love." 
Christ's  mission  was  not  to  change  God's  disposition  and 
make  him  willing  to  forgive,  but  to  demonstrate  that  he  is 
eternally  willing  to  forgive.  The  sufferings  of  Christ  find 
their  key  not  in  the  justice  of  God  which  demands  some 
victim  for  his  wrath,  but  in  the  love  of  God  which  at  any  cost 
seeks  to  win  men  to  holiness. 

Strictly  speaking,  the  death  of  Christ  was  not  necessary  to 
human  salvation.  He  voluntarily  laid  down  his  life,  and  in 
so  doing  obeyed  the  divine  will.  But  he  was  not  a  suicide; 
he  was  murdered.  To  say  that  his  death  was  an  indispensable 
condition  of  human  salvation  is  to  say  that  God's  grace  had  to 
call  in  the  aid  of  murderers  in  order  that  it  might  find  a  way 
to  human  hearts.  I  am  not  willing  to  acknowledge  any  in- 
debtedness to  Judas  Iscariot  for  the  forgiveness  of  my  sins. 
Whatever  necessity  there  was  for  the  death  of  Jesus  lay  not  in 
the  justice  of  God,  nor  in  God's  regard  for  law,  but  in  human 
sinfulness.  The  world  being  what  it  was  when  the  Son  of 
God  was  here,  the  human  heart  being  what  it  was,  it  was  in- 
deed inevitable  that,  he  whose  perfect  purity  was  so  terrible  a 

'  See  Abbott's  Commentary  on  Romans,  p.  70. 


296      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

rebuke  to  all  evil  should  receive  the  full  shock  of  human 
v^ickedness.  It  was  indeed  true,  in  the  circumstances,  that 
divine  love  could  find  its  supreme  utterance  only  through  the 
suffering  of  God's  Son  at  the  hands  of  sinful  men.  But  we 
must  not  charge  to  the  justice  of  God  or  the  supposed  neces- 
sities of  his  moral  government  that  which  really  belongs  at  the 
door  of  human  sin.^ 

That  the  death  of  Christ  should  receive  the  prominence  the 
New  Testament  gives  it  is  most  natural.  The  supreme  self- 
sacrifice  for  which  his  cross  stands,  revealed  the  real  spirit  of 
Jesus  even  more  impressively  than  did  his  gracious  words  and 
kindly  deeds.  His  death  in  the  most  painful  manner  was  the 
lowest  depth  to  which  his  sacrificing  love  could  take  him.  Ac- 
cordingly, the  cross  has  become  the  symbol  of  his  entire  mis- 
sion, and  attention  has  been  fixed  upon  his  death  rather  than 
upon  the  ministry  that  preceded.  His  death  provided  the 
mightiest  of  appeals  to  our  sinful  hearts.  He  foresaw  that, 
lifted  up,  he  would  draw  all  men  unto  him.  It  is  fitting,  there- 
fore, to  say,  in  scriptural  language,  that  we  are  cleansed  by  his 
blood,  or  that  he  died  for  us.  Yet  Jesus  freely  offered  forgive- 
ness to  penitent  sinners  who  had  no  thought  of  his  death.  His 
death  may  be  said  to  save  in  the  sense  that  it  leads  to  repent- 
ance when  perhaps  nothing  else  would.  It  may  be  regarded 
as  indispensable  in  the  sense  that  only  by  it  could  God  make  his 
mightiest  appeal  to  sinful  men.  But  Jesus  clearly  made  re- 
pentance the  sole  condition  of  divine  forgiveness,  and  to  main- 

*  A  theological  absurdity  extreme  enough  to  be  worth  remembering  is 
the  reply  a  brother  minister  once  made  to  my  contention  that  unqualified 
ihsistence  on  the  necessity  of  Jesus'  death  makes  murder  an  essential  part 
of  the  plan  of  salvation.  "  Suppose,"  said  I,  "  that  the  Jews  had  accepted 
their  Messiah,  that  Pharisees  and  chief  priests  had  repented  and  become 
his  disciples  as  they  ought  to  have. — then  there  would  have  been  none  to 
murder  him.  In  that  case  would  the  divine  forgiveness  of  sins  be  im- 
possible?" "In  that  case,"  was  the  reply,  "it  would  have  been  the  duty 
of  the  high  priest,  as  an  official  obeying  the  divine  law,  without  any 
malice  in  his  heart,  solemnly  to  slay  Jesus  as  the  Lamb  of  God  appointed  to 
suffer." 


The  Atonement  297 

tain  that  God's  grace  was  blocked  until  a  foul  murder  had  re- 
moved an  obstruction  is  utterly  foreign  to  his  thought. 

"  God  was  in  Christ," — being  reconciled  to  the  world?  no, — 
*'  reconciling  the  world  to  himself."  Why  are  we  so  unwilling 
to  accept  frankly  Jesus'  declaration,  "  He  that  hath  seen  me 
hath  seen  the  Father?"  Do  our  guilty  consciences  make  us 
feel  it  too  good  to  be  true?  Should  we  be  afraid  to  trust  our- 
selves directly  to  the  mercy  of  Jesus,  as  did  the  sinful  woman 
in  Simon's  house  ?  Why  need  we  frame  an  elaborate  "  plan 
of  salvation?  "  Is  it  not  enough  to  say  that  God  is  love,  and 
to  see  in  Jesus  an  interpretation  and  a  proof  of  that  glorious 
fact?  If  ''God  was  in  Christ,"  then  Christ's  spirit  is  the 
Eternal  Spirit.  Atonement  is  eternal,  the  Lamb  of  God  is 
slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world.  Our  sins  hurt  our 
heavenly  Father.  It  is  he  who  sacrifices  himself  for  our  sal- 
vation, because  he  loves  us.     It  is  he  who  says  in  his  Son : 

"  I   died   for  you.   my   children, 
And  will  ye  treat  me  so?  " 

Christ's  passion  lifts  the  veil  and  shows  us  the  divine  heart 
pierced  and  wounded  by  our  transgressions.     We  answer : 

"  O  Lord,  with  shame  and  sorrow 
We  open  now  the  door: 
Dear  Saviour,  enter,  enter, 
And  leave  us  nevermore." 

Why  must  divine  love  for  sinful  man  be  expressed  through 
suffering?  Perhaps  no  answer  can  be  given,  save  to  say  that 
it  is  inherent  in  the  essential  relationship  of  moral  beings  that 
love  in  a  good  person  for  a  bad  one  involves  pain.  The  fact,  at 
any  rate,  is  unquestionable.  The  good  always  suffer  for  the 
bad,  and  in  proportion  to  their  goodness  is  the  intensity  of  their 
pain.  It  is  the  purest  souls  that  feel  most  keenly  the  shame  of 
the  world's  sin.  It  was  inevitable  that  Jesus,  the  Sinless  One, 
being  in  this  sinful  world,  should  be  preeminently  the  Man  of 
Sorrows.  The  ingratitude  of  man  never  pierced  another's 
heart  as  it  did  his,  for  none  other  ever  loved  like  him.  The 
wickedness  of  man  never  burdened  another's  soul  as  it  did  his, 


298       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

for  none  other  has  had  such  clear  eyes  to  perceive  it  in  all  its 
hideousness.  None  other  ever  felt  so  keenly  the  infinite  pity 
of  it  that  man,  made  in  the  image  of  God  and  capable  of  high 
fellowship  with  God,  should  choose  a  brute's  life  rather  than  a 
divine  life,  for  none  other  has  known  as  he  did  the  full  possi- 
bilities of  human  nature.  The  sinless  loved  the  sinful, — that 
always  means  suffering.  We  may  not  explain  why,  but  we 
shall  appreciate  the  fact  in  the  measure  that  we  ourselves  suffer 
as  Christ  did,  bearing  in  our  hearts  the  burden  of  others'  sins 
and  gladly  sacrificing  ourselves  that  we  may  bring  our  fellow- 
men  to  God. 

Not  in  vain  is  it  that  the  good  suffer  vicariously.  The  cross 
of  Christ  became  his  throne.  The  blood  of  the  martyrs  is  ever 
the  seed  of  the  church.  Through  the  sacrifice  of  the  noblest 
men,  the  moral  progress  of  the  race  is  achieved.  "  Vicarious 
suffering,"  says  President  Hyde,  "  is  the  price  some  one  must 
pay  for  every  step  of  progress  and  every  conquest  over  evil  the 
world  shall  ever  gain."^  The  cross  of  Christ  is  the  symbol  of  a 
universal  law  of  the  moral  order.  Christ  is  the  Saviour  par 
excellence,  but  every  man  of  Christlike  spirit  is  to  a  degree  a 
saviour.2  He  makes  the  world  better  for  his  presence,  but  at 
cost  to  himself.  He  drinks  Christ's  cup  and  is  baptized  with 
Christ's  baptism.  He  knows  the  fellowship  of  Christ's  suffer- 
ings and  fills  up  that  which  is  lacking  of  his  afilictions.  He  is 
made  sin  on  behalf  of  his  fellow-men  that  they  may  become  the 
righteousness  of  God  in  him. 

"  Count   me   o'er  earth's   chosen   heroes. 
They  were  souls  that  stood  alone, 
While  the  men  they  agonized  for 
Hurled  the  contumelious   stone." 

The  suffering  of  Jesus  is  thus  not  without  analogy  in  human 
experience.     The  pious  mother  who  agonizes  over  her  way- 

*"  Outlines  of  Social  Theology,"  p.  228. 

'The  late  Prof.  Bruce  has  made  what  he  calls  a  modest  contribution  to 
a  scientific  theory  of  progress  through  sacrifice  in  "  The  Providential 
Order,"  p.  327. 


The  Atonement  299 

ward  boy,  who  went  down  to  death's  door  to  bring  her  child 
into  the  world,  and  who  would  now  gladly  have  that  door 
swing  wide  open  for  her  if  only  she  could  see  her  son  forsake 
his  sins  and  become  a  noble  man, — knows  the  meaning  of 
Christ's  passion  through  her  own  anguish  better  than  she  could 
learn  it  from  any  theological  treatise.  It  is  that  suffering  love 
that  avails  to  bring  back  the  prodigal  sons,  and  only  as  parents 
have  it  for  their  children,  pastors  for  their  people,  friends  for 
their  friends,  can  they  be  real  soul-winners. 

The  word  Atonement  might  well  be  abandoned.  It  is  not 
in  the  New  Testament  and  the  ideas  which  it  suggests  to  most 
minds  are  unchristian.^  Reconciliation  is  better.  It  is  more 
accurate  to  say  that  Christ  reconciles  than  to  say  that  his  death 
reconciles.  He  reconciles  because  of  his  divine-human  nature. 
To  that  statement  all  true  explanations  may  be  reduced.  What 
Jesus  did  was  natural  to  such  a  being  as  he.  He  has  the  re- 
ligious value  of  God  to  us,  and  in  him  God  makes  the  incom- 
parable appeal  of  sacrificing  love.  He  is  the  perfect  man ;  his 
purity  thoroughly  exposes  and  condemns  our  sinfulness;  his 
nobility  speaks  to  our  nobler  selves.  To  love  him  and  to  follow 
his  example  is  to  love  God  and  to  adopt  as  one's  own  God's 
ideal  for  man.  In  moral  union  with  him  and  spiritual  com- 
panionship there  is  that  transformation  of  character  from  sin 
to  holiness  which  alone  is  true  salvation.  He  is  the  meeting- 
place  of  God  and  man.  Not  because  of  some  transaction  in 
which  he  had  a  part  about  nineteen  centuries  ago  is  Christ  our 
Saviour,  but  because  in  him  God  comes  to  us,  in  him  we  have 
our  access  to  the  Father. 


'  "Atonement"  occurs  in  Rom.  5:3  in  the  Authorized  Version.    In  the 
Revised  Version  of  1881,  "  reconciliation  "  is  properiy  substituted. 


The  Lord's  Supper:  Is  It  a  Church  or  a 
Christian  Ordinance  and  Who  Should 
Partake  of  It  ? 


The  Lord's  Supper:  Is  It  a  Church 
or  a  Christian  Ordinance  and  Who 
Should  Partake  of  It  ? 

BY 

The  Reverend  W.  T,  JORDAN 

THE  Church  has  two  ordinances,  baptism  and  communion. 
Because  inseparably  related  it  is  not  possible  to  consider 
them  separately.  They  are  of  the  same  authority,  dignity  and 
value.  One  cannot  take  the  place  of  the  other.  Each  receives 
its  authority  and  value  from  the  express  command  of  Christ, 
"  Go  ye,  therefore,  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them." 
"  This  do  in  remembrance  of  me."  Clothed  with  equal  im- 
portance each  is  to  continue  perpetually.  Coupled  with  the 
command  to  preach  and  baptize  is  the  promise,  "  Lo,  I  am 
with  you  alway."  ''  As  often  as  ye  eat  this  bread,  and  drink 
this  cup,  ye  do  show  the  Lord's  death  till  He  come."  Looked 
at  from  every  standpoint,  whether  in  relation  to  Christ,  the 
believer,  the  church  or  the  world  they  are  of  equal  authority 
and  stand  or  fall  together.  The  same  reasons  must  be  given 
for  maintaining  one  as  the  other.  They  can  never  be  changed 
either  in  their  nature,  relationship  or  design  without  doing 
violence  to  the  scriptures,  and  disregarding  the  authority  of 
Christ. 

What  is  baptism?  What  is  communion?  These  questions 
must  be  answered  together.  Baptism  is  putting  on  Christ 
sacramentally. 

This  is  done  spiritually  in  accepting  Christ  by  faith,  orally 
by  confessing  Him  in  word  (Rom.  lo:  lo)  and  sacramentally 
in  baptism,  and  in  baptism  only  (Gal.  3:  27).  Communion  is 
the  continuous  confession  that  the  new  life  in  Christ,  received 
by  faith  and  confessed  in  baptism,  is  being  continued  by  fel- 
lowship with  Him.  Baptism  declares  that  we  have  come  to 
Him;  communion  says  we  are  continuing  with  Him.     Baptism 


304      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

is  a  confession  that  we  have  renounced  sin  and  become  sep- 
arated from  the  world ;  communion  is  the  act  of  one  thus  sep- 
arated. Baptism  speaks  of  life  accepted  in  Christ;  commun- 
ion of  life  lived  with  Christ.  The  two  ordinances  stand  as  an- 
tecedent and  consequent,  birth  and  growth. 

Each  ordinance  recalls  an  historical  fact,  and  each  points  to 
blessings  yet  to  be  enjoyed.  Baptism  points  back  to  the  death, 
burial  and  resurrection  of  Christ,  and  forward  to  the  blessings 
of  the  resurrection  life  of  the  believer  (Rom.  6:4-6).  Com- 
munion points  back  to  the  death  of  Christ  and  forward  to 
His  coming  again  and  to  perfect  fellowship  with  Him  in  His 
Kingdom  (i  Cor.  11:26;  Luke  22:  16). 

If  all  the  scriptures  were  lost  except  those  which  refer  to  bap- 
tism and  communion  we  would  still  have  left  a  clear  teaching 
upon  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  Christianity — the  death, 
burial  and  resurrection  of  Christ.  As  the  believer  is  buried  with 
Christ  by  baptism  he  is  voluntarily  placed  in  the  same  position 
in  which  he  will  be  placed  when  buried  beneath  the  sod.    The 
hands  are  folded  reverently  upon  the  breast  and  he  is  buried 
under  the  water  in  a  horizontal  position.     By  this  act  he  says 
to  the  world,  "  I  believe  that  Christ  died  and  was  buried." 
As  he  is  raised  up  out  of  the  water  by  the  hands  of  the  ad- 
ministrator, he  says  by  the  very  act,   "  I  believe  that  Christ 
was  raised  from  the  grave  by  the  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
(Col.  2 :  12) ;   and  since  He  died  for  me,  was  buried,  and  rose 
again,  I  hereby,  in  my  baptism,  confess  that  I  have  died  to  sin 
through  faith  in  His  death  for  me,  and  by  my  resurrection 
from  the  water  I  also  confess  that  it  is  my  purpose  to  live  the 
new,  or  resurrection,  life  in  Christ  (Rom.  6:4-6).     It  would 
be  a  crime  to  bury  a  man  who  is  not  dead,  and  a  shame  not  to 
bury  him  when  he  is  dead.     Hence  a  man  is  baptized,  buried, 
because  he  has  died  to  sin.     In  other  words  he  is  baptized  not 
to  save  him,  but  because  he  is  already  saved.    As  in  baptism  he 
confesses  his  death  to  sin,  in  communion  he  confesses  his  new 
life  in  Christ,  and  that  that  life  is  being  sustained  by  fellow- 
ship with  Him. 


The  Lord's  Supper  305 

The  organization  of  the  church  is  based  upon  the  ordi- 
nances. An  organization  without  them  has  no  more  right  to 
the  claim  of  being  a  church  than  has  a  debating  society  or  a 
Hterary  club.  They  set  forth  the  very  life  of  the  church.  They 
symbolize  the  very  essence  of  the  gospel.  They  can  never  l)e 
altered  or  set  aside  because  of  the  symbols  in  which  they  are 
clothed.     The  symbols  fix  their  meaning. 

But  they  are  more  than  acts  of  symbolic  meaning.  Bap- 
tism is  the  act  of  initiation  into  the  church.  *'  For  in  one 
spirit  we  all  were  baptized  into  one  body"  (i  Cor.  12:  13). 
To  what  body  does  this  refer?  To  the  spiritual  and  invisible 
body  or  to  the  visible  body,  the  church?  Certainly  to  the 
visible  body,  the  church.  It  is  visible  baptism  into  a  visible 
body.  It  cannot  mean  a  spiritual  baptism  into  an  invisible 
body.  ''  The  New  Testament  recognizes  no  visible  church- 
outside  of  visible  churches."  The  Bible  teaching  is  plain  that 
no  one  is  a  member  of  the  church  until  he  is  baptized.  It  is 
baptism  that  constitutes  membership.  The  New  Testament 
recognizes  no  baptism  except  that  of  believers,  and  no  author- 
ity to  administer  the  ordinances  except  that  of  a  church. 

All  orthodox  churches,  or  denominations,  agree  in  the  prac- 
tice of  admitting  none  to  the  Lord's  Table  until  they  become 
members  of  a  Christian  Church,  and  none  are  considered 
members  of  a  Christian  Church  until  they  have  been  baptized. 
This  practice  agrees  with  the  New  Testament  teaching.  Bap- 
tism was  instituted  before  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  it  was  the 
invariable  practice  of  the  apostles  to  baptize  all  believers  be- 
fore they  admitted  them  to  the  Lord's  Table.  To  this  practice 
there  is  not  a  single  exception.  See  the  account  of  Pentecost 
in  Acts  2;  the  eunuch,  Acts  8;  Lydia  and  the  jailor  with  their 
households,  Acts  16;  Cornelius  and  his  friends,  Acts  10;  Saul, 
Acts  9.  These  were  all  baptized  as  soon  as  they  believed,  and 
not  one  of  them  enjoyed  the  communion  of  the  Lord's  Supper 
until  after  they  had  been  baptized.  This  practice  was  strictly 
adhered  to  because  it  was  required  by  the  great  commission. 
The  order  of  the  commission  is,  i.  Teach  all  men  to  repent 


306      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

and  believe  on  Jesus  Christ  for  salvation.  2.  Baptize  all  who 
believe.  3.  Teach  them  to  observe  all  things  whatsoever  I 
have  commanded  you. 

Among  the  commands  to  be  observed  after  baptism  is, 
"  This  do  in  remembrance  of  me.''  The  apostles  understood 
the  commission  and  strictly  adhered  to  it,  and  the  same  order 
has  been  observed  by  all  orthodox  denominations  since  the 
days  of  Christ.  To  this  all  the  authorities  agree  from  Justin 
Martyr  in  A.  D.  150  to  the  present  time. 

Communion  is  a  privilege  of  the  church.  One  must  be 
initiated  into  a  society  before  he  can  enjoy  its  privileges;  and 
baptism  being  the  initatory  act,  therefore  it  necessarily  pre- 
cedes communion.  Thus  the  position  of  communion  has  already 
been  determined  by  the  position  of  baptism. 

It  follows  necessarily  that  communion  is  a  church  ordi- 
ance.  Believers  are  commanded  to  be  baptized ;  these  believers 
being  baptized  constitute  the  Church,  and  as  a  Church  they 
partake  of  the  one  loaf  in  compliance  with  the  dying  request 
of  Him  into  whom  they  have  been  baptized,  and  by  whom  they 
are  now  being  sustained.  The  ordinances  then  set  forth  the 
life  of  the  believer  and  constitute  the  basis  of  church  organi- 
zation. Left  just  where  Christ  placed  them,  in  the  Church, 
and  properly  observed,  they  body  forth  the  very  gospel  of 
God's  salvation.  Taken  out  of  their  place,  they  are  stripped 
of  all  meaning,  and  become  mere  forms  without  any  signifi- 
cance whatever.  The  harmony  of  Christian  order  is  broken 
and  only  confusion  follows.  Communion  is  a  Church  ordi- 
nance because  no  organization  can  preserve  it  in  its  ordained 
order  except  the  Church.  The  ordinances  cannot  maintain 
themselves.  They  were  committed  to  the  Churches,  and  if  the 
Churches  do  not  preserve  them  who  will? 

It  is  clear  from  the  scriptures  that  the  Supper  is  not  an  in- 
dividual or  social  or  family  ordinance.  For  regarding  it  as  a 
social  ordinance  the  Apostle  Paul  severely  rebuked  the  Church 
at  Corinth  and  commanded  the  members  to  wait  one  for  an- 
other, and,  with  the  whole  Church  partake  of  the  Supper. 


The  Lord's  Supper  307 

"  For  we  being  many,  are  one  bread  and  one  body ;  for  we  are 
all  partakers  of  that  one  bread  "  (Cor.  10:  17).  It  is  said  of 
the  disciples  immediately  after  Pentecost,  "  And  all  that  be- 
lieved were  together,  and  they  continuing  daily  with  one  ac- 
cord in  the  temple,  and  in  breaking  bread  from  house  to 
house"  etc.  (Acts  2:44-46).  "They  worshipped  daily  in 
the  temple ;  they  broke  bread  at  home  ". 

Paul  says  to  the  Corinthians  that  he  received  the  informa- 
tion which  he  gave  them  concerning  the  Supper  from  the 
Lord  Jesus  (i  Cor.  11 :  23).  He  is  writing  to  the  Church  as 
a  body  and  not  to  individuals.  Individuals  were  exhorted  to 
examine  themselves  before  partaking  of  the  Supper  in  order 
to  be  sure  that  they  were  observing  it  from  proper  motives,  not 
as  a  feast  but  simply  in  memory  of  Jesus.  Heavy  responsi- 
bility is  placed  upon  the  individual,  it  is  true,  but  the  burden 
of  responsibility  is  placed  upon  the  Church.  If  there  should 
be  a  conflict  between  the  judgment  of  the  individual  and  his 
Church  as  to  his  fitness,  the  individual  should  yield.  A  Church 
cannot  escape  responsibility  on  the  plea  that  each  one  must 
judge  for  himself.  The  laws  concerning  the  ordinance  have 
been  given  to  the  Church,  and  it  is  her  duty  to  enforce  them. 
Paul  told  the  Corinthians  not  to  keep  company,  not  to  eat 
with  any  brother  reputed  to  be  a  fornicator,  or  covetous,  or 
an  idolater,  or  a  drunkard,  or  an  extortioner  ( i  Cor.  5 :  11). 
According  to  the  best  authorities  this  means,  not  to  eat  at  the 
same  table  with  such :  whether  the  love  feast,  or  in  private  in- 
tercourse, much  more  ai  the  Lord's  Table. 

"  That  the  man  should  be  a  converted  man,  a  baptized  man, 
a  Church  member,  is  as  plainly  declared  in  the  scriptures  as 
that  he  should  be  a  moral  man  and  just  in  his  deportment. 
If  it  is  the  province  and  duty  of  the  Church  to  judge  the  com- 
municant as  to  his  possession  of  a  part  of  these  scriptural 
qualifications,  and  the  apostle  distinctly  asserts  that  it  is,  no 
less  can  it  be  the  province  and  duty  of  the  Church  to  judge 
the  communicant  as  to  his  possession  of  all  the  scriptural 
qualifications.     And  if  the  Church  has  not  this  right,  aye,  if 


3o8      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

this  duty  does  not  solemnly  rest  upon  her,  then  the  Lord's 
Table  is  a  prey  to  designing  men,  and  the  Church  herself  is 
impotent  to  determine  or  preserve  her  own  character."  Cor- 
rective discipline  becomes  an  impossibility.  Many  unkind  and 
harsh  things  are  said  of  those  who  practice  restricted  com- 
munion on  the  ground  that  Christians  should  not  be  separated 
at  the  Lord's  Table.  We  should  remember  that  the  separa- 
tion does  not  take  place  at  the  table.  It  takes  place  at  the 
water.  In  the  beginning  it  was  not  so,  and  for  nearly  three 
hundred  years  all  Christians  sat  down  together  at  the  Lord's 
Table.  The  division  took  place  over  baptism.  The  Catholic 
Church  arrogated  to  itself  the  right  to  change  the  ordinance 
from  immersion  to  sprinkling,  and  did  so.  When  the  ordi- 
nances were  given  to  the  Church  denominations  were  unknown, 
and  so  long  as  baptism  was  retained  in  its  primitive  purity  as 
a  public  profession  of  belief  in  the  burial  and  resurrection  of 
Christ,  no  separation  at  the  Table  was  thought  of.  But  since 
the  change  from  immersion  to  sprinkling,  Christians  have  be- 
come separated  into  all  sorts  of  sects  and  by  all  sorts  of  be- 
liefs. So  long  as  these  differing  sects  and  opposing  beliefs 
are  justified  there  can  be  no  consistency  in  objecting  to  sep- 
aration at  the  Lord's  Table.  If  all  Christians  of  all  denomina- 
tions can  consistently  come  together  at  the  Lord's  Table,  what 
justification  is  there  for  maintaining  separate  denominations? 
There  can  be  no  real  fellowship  at  the  Table  unless  all  who  sit 
down  together  have  the  same  views  of  scriptural  truth.  "  How 
can  two  walk  together  except  they  be  agreed  ?  "  Oneness  of 
belief  is  the  basis  of  fellowship.  How  can  there  be  any  real 
communion  when  the  basis  of  it  is  lacking? 

When  Christians  of  every  denomination  shall  come  to  admit 
what  the  scriptures  clearly  teach,  and  what  the  scholarship  of 
the  world  is  agreed  upon,  that  the  original  mode  of  baptism 
was  the  immersion  of  a  believer  in  water  and  that  baptism  is 
prerequisite  to  communion,  the  question  "  is  communion  a 
Church  ordinance  ?  "  will  be  no  longer  asked. 


The  Lord's  Supper :  Is  It  a  Church  or  a 
Christian  Ordinance  and  Who  Should 
Partake  of  It  ? 


The  Lord's  Supper:  Is  It  a  Church 
or  a  Christian  Ordinance  and  Who 
Should  Partake  of  It  ? 

BY 

The  Reverend  GEORGE  HENRY  HUBBARD,  D.D. 

CHRISTIANITY,  as  represented  by  Jesus  Christ,  was  a 
thing  of  life.  Forces,  principles,  ideas,  were  its  constituent 
elements.  It  was  essentially  the  manifestation  of  the  Christly 
spirit  in  all  the  manifold  relations  of  human  society,  in  all  the 
most  commonplace  directions  of  human  activity.  And  it  con- 
tained within  itself  the  vital  power  which  makes  for  contin- 
uous growth.  Spontaneity,  elasticity,  adaptability,  these  were 
the  characteristics  which  revealed  themselves  in  the  new  re- 
ligion as  it  came  to  men  fresh  from  the  hands  of  the  Master, 
— these,  wedded  with  a  divine  and  transforming  power. 

The  Christianity  of  the  Church,  on  the  other  hand,  has  ever 
tended  towards  forms  and  institutions,  i.  e.  towards  the  me- 
chanical and  the  lifeless.  Indeed,  something  of  this  tendency 
is  inherent  in  the  very  nature  of  the  Church,  which,  in  its  or- 
ganized form,  is  itself  the  first  manifestation  of  the  principle 
of  crystallization  in  religion.  There  have  been  periods  in 
Christian  history  when  the  Churchly  ideal  of  religion  has  stood 
in  marked  contrast  and  even  antagonism  to  the  Christly  ideal, 
when  the  disciples  of  Jesus  have  striven  for  the  rigid  perfec- 
tion of  the  crystal  instead  of  the  growing  perfection  of  the  tree. 

We  frequently  speak  of  the  Church  as  having  been  estab- 
lished by  our  Lord ;  whereas,  in  point  of  fact,  the  Lord  did  not 
establish  an  organized  Church  at  all.  Doubtless  an  organized 
Church  is  the  natural,  perhaps  the  inevitable  outcome  of  His 
work  and  teaching.  But  we  do  well  to  remember  that  Jesus 
Himself  only  gathered  a  band  of  disciples  and  chose  twelve 
apostles  in  the  most  informal  fashion,  without  any  definiteness 
of  organization  or  corporate  relation  to  one  another.     The 

311 


312       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

only  bonds  by  which  He  united  them  were  the  spiritual  and 
living  bonds  of  brotherly  love.  The  only  constitution  He  gave 
was  the  Gospel  of  human  salvation.  The  only  authority  with 
which  He  invested  them  v/as  the  inherent  authority  of  truth  and 
righteousness. 

To  these  disciples,  not  as  a  body  of  men  and  women,  but  as 
individual  followers  of  the  Christ,  drawn  together  by  a  com- 
mon interest  and  held  together  by  a  common  purpose  and 
loyalty,  He  suggested  certain  simple  rites  as  helps  in  the  main- 
tenance and  upbuilding  of  spiritual  life  in  themselves  and  in 
the  world.  The  rites  themselves  were  not  prescribed  in  an 
exact  and  positive  manner.  They  were  not  like  the  metal 
casting  that  must  conform  precisely  at  every  point  to  the 
mould  in  which  it  is  run.  Rather  were  they  given  and  accepted 
in  a  very  free  and  natural  fashion.  And  their  purpose  seems 
to  have  been  individual,  inspirational,  educational;  not  as  a 
badge  of  separation  from  the  world  or  of  union  with  each 
other. 

For  example.  In  calling  His  disciples,  Jesus  simply  uttered 
the  invitation,  "  Follow  Me,"  and,  asking  no  questions  regard- 
ing personal  character,  experience,  or  belief,  imposing  no  con- 
ditions of  special  or  corporate  responsibility,  He  welcomed  all 
who  came  to  the  fullest  privileges  and  opportunities  of  dis- 
cipleship.  Then  He  held  them  to  Himself  and  brought  them 
into  a  growing  relation  of  fellowship  with  one  another  solely 
by  the  power  of  personal  loyalty.  In  Himself  as  the  Son  of 
God  was  the  magnetic  force  which  rendered  all  external  bonds 
superfluous.  In  all  things  He  was  the  Leader;  and  to  whatso- 
ever duty  or  danger  or  sacrifice  or  effort  He  called  others,  He 
led  the  way. 

The  same  elasticity  characterizes  all  His  relations  with  His 
followers.  Take  the  matter  of  baptism.  Notwithstanding  the 
strenuous  assertions  of  certain  theologians  and  lexicographers, 
the  rite  of  baptism  was  apparently  administered  at  the  first 
with  great  freedom.  Its  precise  form  is  nowhere  clearly  de- 
fined ;  and  the  only  absolute  prerequisite  would  seem  to  be  the 


The  Lord's  Supper  3 1 3 

expressed  desire  of  the  candidate.  And  even  this  desire  was 
sometimes  representative  rather  than  individual;  for,  while  it 
is  not  recorded  that  the  disciples  under  the  immediate  direc- 
tion of  the  Master  ever  baptized  entire  households,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  apostles  did  so  at  a  later  period  believing  that  in 
so  doing  they  were  fulfilling  the  purpose  and  command  of 
their  Lord. 

Again,  when  His  disciples  came  to  Him  asking  for  a  form  of 
prayer,  the  spirit  of  what  He  said  made  so  deep  an  impression 
upon  their  minds  that  the  form  of  words  was  forgotten,  and 
to-day  we  do  not  know  what  were  the  words  that  He  taught 
them.  To  be  sure,  the  Church  has  given  us  a  form  of  words 
which  we  repeat  on  suitable  occasions  under  the  title  of  "  The 
Lord's  Prayer  " ;  but  the  only  thing  we  certainly  know  about 
it  is  that  it  is  not  the  form  which  Jesus  gave  at  the  request  of 
His  followers.  It  is  a  part  of  the  Churchly  crystallization,  not 
the  living  utterance  of  the  Christ. 

The  institution  of  the  Lord's  Supper  follows  the  same 
analog>\  How  utterly  informal  was  that  little  gathering  of 
Jesus  and  the  apostles  the  evening  before  the  crucifixion.  In 
preparation  for  it  the  householder  had  made  ready  the  room 
and  the  Passover  feast,  and  the  company  came  as  his  guests. 
And  when  they  were  assembled,  Jesus  rebukes  the  spirit  of 
ceremonialism  and  the  strife  about  positions  of  honour  by  tak- 
ing upon  Himself  the  duty  of  a  servant.  And  as  we  read  the 
conversation  that  took  place  there,  we  realize  that  it  was  a  time 
of  deep  feeling  not  of  formality.  The  Passover  feast  of  the 
Jews,  while  it  was  in  a  sense  a  Churchly  ordinance,  was  also  a 
peculiarly  family  service.  It  was  eaten  in  the  home,  the  mem- 
bers of  the  family  being  together,  and  the  father  sitting  at  the 
head  of  the  table  as  director  of  the  feast.  So  this  gathering  of 
disciples  with  Jesus  is  a  sort  of  family  gathering,  the  Master 
and  those  dearest  to  Him  and  most  closely  identified  with  His 
mission.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  Jesus  had  no  home  of  His 
own,  the  occasion  and  service  seem  to  approach  as  near  to  the 
home  conditions  as  possible. 


314      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

The  natural  interpretation  of  the  symbols  of  the  feast  is  in 
perfect  harmony  with  the  simplicity  of  its  circumstances.  The 
little  Christian  family  is  seated  about  the  Passover  table. 
Without  introducing  any  new  elements,  our  Lord  makes  use 
of  the  materials  immediately  before  Him,  the  simple  appoint- 
ments of  the  supper,  as  emblems  of  His  sufferings  and  death, 
saying,  "  As  often  as  ye  eat  this  bread  and  drink  the  cup,  ye 
proclaim  the  Lord's  death  till  He  come."  He  thus  turns  to 
spiritual  use  a  family  supper,  to  keep  His  disciples  in  remem- 
brance of  His  death.  There  is  no  significance  in  the  particular 
materials,  and  no  emphasis  is  laid  upon  them.  It  was  the 
consecration  of  the  ordinary  articles  of  daily  food  as  symbols 
of  the  spiritual  food  of  the  soul.  Christ  Himself  thus  in- 
terprets the  symbolism,  "  My  flesh  is  meat  indeed,  and  my 
blood  is  drink  indeed."  The  two  general  classes  of  food  and 
drink  comprise  all  that  is  necessary  for  the  sustenance  and 
growth  of  the  physical  system;  so  the  Christ  in  His  fulness 
furnishes  all  that  is  necessary  for  the  sustenance  of  the  spirit- 
ual life.  This,  then  is  the  meaning  of  the  symbols  of  the 
Lord's  Supper.  They  are  only  representative  articles  of  food 
and  drink;  nothing  more. 

In  this  very  simple  and  informal  sense  of  sanctifying  the 
family  meal  to  spiritual  uses  the  apostles  clearly  received  the 
suggestion  of  their  Lord;  for  we  have  no  hint  of  a  Churchly 
interpretation  of  the  ordinance  till  some  years  had  passed.  But 
immediately  after  the  ascension  we  find  the  disciples  meeting 
together  in  their  homes  and  breaking  bread  from  house  to 
house.  As  the  writer  of  the  book  of  Acts  tells  us,  "  All  that 
believed  were  together, — continuing  steadfastly  with  one  ac- 
cord in  the  temple,  and  breaking  bread  at  home,  they  did  take 
their  food  with  gladness  and  singleness  of  heart,  etc."  In 
other  words,  at  the  common  daily  meals,  and  at  their  frequent 
gatherings  of  a  semi-social  nature,  the  food  became  to  them  a 
memorial  of  the  Lord's  death,  and  so  every  such  meal  or  feast 
was  to  the  spiritually  minded  a  true  Lord's  Supper. 

Soon,  however,  the  Church  began  to  assume  a  more  defi- 


The  Lord's  Supper  3 1  5 

nitely  organized  form.  This  was  the  almost  inevitable  result 
of  increasing  numbers  and  geographical  extension.  But  in 
some  respects  it  was  an  unfortunate  result;  since  the  organi- 
zation from  a  very  early  period  manifested  a  tendency  to  exalt 
itself  above  vital  truth,  and  the  means  often  overshadowed  the 
end.  The  lines  of  discipleship  were  drawn  more  sharply  than 
Jesus  had  drawn  them.  The  brotherhood  included,  not  all  who 
wished  to  follow  Jesus,  but  all  who  fulfilled  certain  prescribed 
conditions  of  membership,  which  conditions  became  increas- 
ingly strict  and  arbitrary  with  passing  years.  With  the  crys- 
tallization of  the  Church  came  a  corresponding  change  in  the 
rites,  which  were  more  and  more  looked  upon  as  formal  sacra- 
ments connected  strictly  with  the  Church  and  her  services. 
Exclusion  from  the  Church  involved  exclusion  from  the  sac- 
raments, until  at  length  these  became  the  exclusive  privileges 
and  prerogatives  of  those  who  were  in  full  and  unquestioned 
Church  membership. 

Dr.  A.  C.  McGiffert,  in  his  well  known  work  "  A  history  of 
Christianity  in  the  Apostolic  Age,"  attributes  the  consumma- 
tion of  this  change  directly  to  the  apostle  Paul,  whom  he  re- 
gards as  the  originator  of  the  Lord's  Supper  in  its  present 
ceremonial  form.  He  says,  "  Though  the  Lord's  Supper  was 
everywhere  eaten  by  Christian  disciples  before  Paul,  it  may 
be  said  in  a  certain  sense  that  it  was  established  by  him;  for 
it  was  he,  so  far  as  our  sources  enable  us  to  judge,  who  first 
made  it  a  special  meal,  and  separated  it  from  all  others."  This 
view  of  the  matter  is  deduced  from  the  fact  that  in  his  epistle 
to  the  Corinthians  Paul  enjoins  upon  the  Christians  to  whom 
he  writes  the  wisdom  of  eating  their  regular  meal  at  home 
before  coming  together  to  eat  the  Lord's  Supper,  in  order  that 
no  stress  of  appetite  or  undue  indulgence  in  food  and  drink 
should  lead  to  excess  in  the  sacred  service. 

Now,  while  we  may  not  all  agree  with  Dr.  McGiffert  in 
thus  definitely  fixing  the  responsibility  for  the  change,  the 
fact  of  the  change  is  self  evident.  None  can  read  intelligently 
the  story  of  the  formation  of  the  Church  as  given  us  in  the 


3 1 6      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

New  Testament  without  discovering  that  this  which  was 
given  and  received  at  the  first  as  a  simple  family  service 
observed  as  often  as  disciples  partook  of  their  food,  was 
gradually  transformed  into  a  purely  formal  and  Churchly  cere- 
mony. 

With  the  transfer  of  the  ordinance  to  the  Church  it  lost 
much  of  its  original  significance  and  freedom,  and  certain 
ideas  were  foisted  upon  it  which  probably  had  no  existence  in 
the  mind  of  the  Master  when  He  partook  of  it  with  the  dis- 
ciples in  the  upper  chamber.  The  essential  thought  of  a  com- 
mon meal,  the  partaking  of  food  and  drink  as  necessary  to 
bodily  strength  and  nourishment,  was  overshadowed  by  num- 
berless theological  fictions  such  as  that  of  transubstantiation, 
consubstantiation,  and  others.  The  freedom  of  the  family 
meal  has  given  place  to  the  stiffness  of  a  public  ceremonial, 
and  the  simple  emblems  of  a  supper  are  transformed  into  a  sort 
of  spiritual  charm.  In  one  branch  of  the  Church  the  bread  is 
displaced  by  a  consecrated  wafer  which  would  never  suggest 
the  notion  of  food;  and  in  many  others  the  liquor  which  fills 
the  "  cup  "  is  that  which  is  banished  from  the  home  table  of 
most  Christians  as  unfit  for  common  use,  hence  it  cannot  stand 
as  a  typical  article  of  drink. 

The  liberalizing  and  intelligent  spirit  of  the  present  age 
has  relaxed  somewhat  of  the  exceeding  strictness  which  for 
centuries  held  the  sacraments  with  iron  bands.  A  Church 
which  insists  upon  one  particular  form  of  baptism  no  longer 
refuses  to  fellowship  Churches  that  adopt  other  forms,  nor 
denies  to  the  members  of  other  communions  the  privilege  of 
partaking  of  the  Lord's  supper  in  its  circle.  The  reasonable 
demands  of  enlightened  common  sense  cooperating  with  the 
spirit  of  true  Christian  charity  have  secured  the  general  in- 
troduction of  non-intoxicating  wine  at  the  Lord's  Table  in  the 
place  of  the  fermented  wine  which  was  so  long  required,  to  the 
unspeakable  injury  of  many  a  weak  disciple.  And  the  com- 
mon formula  used  in  many  of  our  Churches  to-day  invites  to 
the  Supper  ''  All  those  who  love  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  ma- 


The  Lord's  Supper  317 

king  no  distinctions  of  Church  membership  nor  even  specify- 
ing membership  as  a  qualification. 

Thus  far  the  advance  guards  of  toleration  and  Christian 
charity  have  come,  and  the  other  battalions  of  the  host  are 
following.  Still  we  have  no  reason  to  flatter  ourselves  that  the 
original  ideal  of  simplicity  and  freedom  is  restored.  We  are 
yet  very  far  from  that.  True,  many  clergymen  give  an  un- 
qualified invitation  to  the  sacrament ;  but  they  and  their  people 
look  upon  it  as  a  Churchly  sacrament  none  the  less,  and  they 
do  not  expect  their  invitation  to  be  accepted  in  the  same  broad 
and  unhesitating  manner  in  which  it  is  given.  The  invitation 
says  nothing  about  Church-membership ;  but  if  one  who  is  not 
a  Church  member  ventures  to  participate  in  the  service  there 
are  many  expressions  of  wonder  both  by  look  and  word;  and 
some  may  be  heard  seriously  questioning  the  propriety  of  the 
act.  Church  members  generally  do  not  encourage  or  even  per- 
mit the  children  and  other  members  of  their  families  not  in  the 
membership  of  the  Church  to  participate  in  the  Supper.  And 
the  modern  introduction  of  individual  communion  cups  is  a  dis- 
tinct step  away  from  the  spirit  of  fellowship  towards  greater 
formality. 

Now  the  spirit  of  the  broadest  modern  invitation  to  the 
Lord's  Supper  is  undoubtedly  the  nearest  approach  to  the 
spirit  of  the  original  institution,  and  ought  to  become  the 
sincere  expression  of  the  Church's  desire  and  expectation. 
Not  one  of  those  who  partook  of  that  first  Lord's  Supper  was 
a  Church  member  in  the  modern  acceptation  of  that  phrase; 
for  as  yet  there  was  no  church.  Furthermore,  the  Supper  as 
observed  in  the  days  immediately  following  was  wholly  in- 
formal, and  there  was  no  "  fencing  the  table."  Families  gath- 
ered together,  men,  women,  and  children,  so  far  as  the 
''  sources  "  indicate,  and  the  meal  was  accompanied  with  the 
usual  conversation,  naturally  upon  themes  connected  with  the 
growing  kingdom  of  God. 

What  should  we  think  of  gathering  all  the  families  of  a 
Church  together  at  a  social  feast  for  pure  spiritual  and  neigh- 


3 1 8       Theology  at  the  Close  of  the  Century 

borly  fellowship  and  talking  over  the  work  and  interests  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  in  the  community,  and  calling  that  the 
Lord's  Supper?  Would  it  not  shock  many  a  conservative  dis- 
ciple? Should  we  not  tremble  for  the  sacredness  of  the  in- 
stitution? Yet  that  would  truly  fulfil  the  original  idea  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  as  manifested  in  the  "  Upper  Chamber  "  and  in 
the  first  gatherings  of  the  disciples. 

Even  the  most  liberal  of  modern  Christians  fears  a  loss  of 
reverence  for  the  sacrament  if  it  be  made  too  common.  But 
who  can  ever  estimate  the  loss  of  spiritual  power  that  has  been 
suffered  by  taking  the  rite  from  the  Christian  home  and  limit- 
ing it  to  the  Church,  thus  secularizing  the  ordinary  meal  of 
the  disciple?  Can  anyone  doubt  that  the  recognition  of  every 
meal  in  a  Christian  home  as  a  true  sacrament  would  exert  a 
strong  influence  upon  all  who  sat  at  the  table?  To  remind 
each  household  thrice  daily  of  the  Lord's  death  could  not  fail 
to  make  a  salutary  impression  upon  every  child. 

Or  if  the  Church  made  the  Supper  a  real  meal,  all  the  mem- 
bers gathering  about  the  tables  with  their  children  and  guests, 
not  sitting  in  cold  and  formal  silence,  but  engaging  in  earnest 
and  friendly  intercourse,  drawing  together  those  of  different 
classes  as  could  not  be  done  in  any  other  way,  would  it  be 
other  than  a  strong  force  for  cementing  in  the  Church  the 
bonds  of  brotherly  love,  and  attracting  the  unconverted  into 
its  fellowship? 

Such  a  restoration  of  the  original  freedom  of  the  Sacrament 
would  relieve  our  Churches  of  at  least  one  serious  hindrance 
to  their  work  and  progress.  So  long  as  the  Lord's  Supper  is 
held  to  be  a  strictly  Churchly  ordinance,  and  at  the  same  time 
a  badge  or  test  of  discipleship  it  necessarily  follows  that  every 
disciple  should  be  admitted  to  the  Church  with  all  possible 
promptness.  Hence  it  has  come  to  pass  that  many  persons  of 
immature  mind  and  tender  years  are  received  into  the  mem- 
bership of  the  Church  to  their  own  injury  and  the  retarding 
of  the  proper  work  of  the  Church.  For,  whatever  may  have 
been  its  original  design,  the  Christian  Church  as  now  existing 


The  Lord's  Supper  319 

is  an  organization  charged  with  the  most  stupendous  duty  and 
the  gravest  responsibihty  that  ever  rested  upon  any  body  of 
men  and  women.  In  the  matter  of  responsibihty  and  service 
no  corporation  in  the  world  can  for  a  moment  be  compared 
with  it.  Yet  we  receive  into  active  participation  in  these  duties 
and  responsibihties  persons  w^ho  would  not  be  permitted  to 
share  for  a  day  the  responsibilities  of  a  banking  or  railroad  cor- 
poration. Why  is  this  ?  Because  we  have  come  to  believe  that  to 
shut  them  out  of  the  Church  is  to  deprive  them  of  the  sacra- 
ments and  other  means  of  grace  which  the  Church  has  gradually 
reserved  to  herself.  When  shall  we  learn  that  the  organized 
Church  is  simply  a  human  instrumentality  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  a  definite  work  and  that  we  may  restrict  and  limit  its 
membership  as  the  exigencies  of  that  work  may  demand;  but 
that  the  real  Church  of  Christ  is  not  organized  but  organic, 
living,  free,  and  offers  its  sacraments  and  all  other  privileges 
and  benefits  without  limit  to  all  who  wish  to  share  them? 

In  some  respects  we  are  certainly  making  progress  towards 
the  restoration  of  the  original  ideal ;  but  in  others  we  are  mov- 
ing away  from  it.  We  shall  not  stand  upon  the  right  ground 
till  we  realize  fully  that  the  Lord's  Supper  was  given  not  as  a 
badge  of  membership  in  the  Church  of  Christ,  not  as  a  medium 
for  the  dispensation  of  a  Churchly  grace,  not  as  a  precise  and 
formal  service ;  but  as  the  consecration  of  a  daily  act  to  a  sacred 
purpose,  so  linking  the  most  profoundly  spiritual  element  of 
religion  with  the  most  common  and  vital  act  of  our  every  day 
life. 


The  Sacrament 


The  Sacrament 


The  Reverend  ROBERT  COLLYER,  D.D. 

I  LOVE  to  muse  over  those  words  of  Saint  Paul  touching 
our  Christian  Faith  and  Fellowship,  "  By  one  spirit 
we  are  all  baptized  into  one  body,  whether  we  be  Jews  or  Gen- 
tile, whether  we  be  bond  or  free,"  and,  when  I  note  how  we 
differ  in  so  many  ways,  to  stand  free  from  the  letter,  so  far  as 
I  am  able  to  do  so,  and  cleave  to  the  spirit  because  the  letter 
is  so  often  the  line  of  division  we  all  draw,  while  the  spirit  of 
truth  and  love  is  the  Divine  reality. 

For  we  read  the  same  Bible,  turn  our  faces  to  the  same 
blessed  heavens  when  we  pray,  and  hold  in  our  hearts  the  one 
essential  faith  that  God  is  our  Father,  and  that  Jesus  the 
Christ,  the  anointed,  came  to  reveal  the  Father  to  our  human 
family.  While  the  line  of  division  may  mean  sprinkling  or 
immersion,  prayer  from  a  printed  book  or  directly  from  the 
heart,  predestination  or  free  grace,  the  essential  or  verbal  in- 
spiration of  the  scriptures,  trinity  or  unity,  with  many  things 
beside  on  which  as  my  own  faith  stands  no  man's  eternal  wel- 
fare ever  did  depend  or  ever  will.  Because  the  essence  of 
prayer  is  to  pray  in  the  spirit  and  in  truth,  with  printed  words 
or  without  them,  or  with  no  words  at  all.  And  baptism  is 
merely  the  symbol;  so  far  as  the  water  is  concerned,  we  can 
use  it  if  we  will,  or  let  it  alone  as  the  "  Friends  "  do.  And  the 
divine  inspiration  is  the  holy  spirit  of  truth — of  God — in  the 
soul,  in  the  Bible  and  in  all  noble  and  true  books;  while  the 
Bible  is  to  me  the  noblest  and  the  best,  and  predestination  or 
freewill  are  the  centripetal  and  centrifugal  forces  in  the  soul 
of  man  as  they  are  in  the  planets.  So  turn  where  we  will  we 
find  the  spirit  which  giveth  life,  and  turn  where  we  will  we  can 
find  the  letter  which  killeth ;  while  just  as  we  come  into  bond- 
age to  the  letter  in  doctrine,  dogma  or  usage,  and  disdain  to 
have  fellowship  with  those  who  differ  from  us  we  make  naught 

323 


324      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

of  the  love  of  God  in  its  uttermost  sanctuary,  the  heart  of  His 
Christ,  and  are  not  Christians  then  but  sectarians.  Also  there 
is  always  this  deep  distinction  to  be  drawn  between  faith  and 
doctrine  no  matter  where  we  may  stand,  that  the  one  is  the 
body  at  best,  while  the  other  is  the  spirit,  the  one  is  the  foun- 
tain and  the  other  the  cistern,  the  one  the  garden  in  which  is 
gathered  all  I  love  best,  while  the  other  is  the  great  garden  of 
God  which  belts  the  world;  and  doctrines,  dogmas  and  usages 
are  of  the  seen  and  temporal,  but  a  living  faith  is  of  the  un- 
seen and  eternal. 

I  note  again  when  this  truth  of  the  spirit  touches  me  to  the 
finer  purpose  that  there  is  no  way  open  to  me  if  I  would  be  a 
proper  man,  let  alone  a  Christian,  but  this,  that  I  must  admit 
the  good,  the  sincere  and  the  true  in  all  the  Churches  into  my 
fellowship  no  matter  whether  they  will  take  me  into  theirs  or 
freeze  me  out.  Because  I  have  to  remember  my  dear  mother 
was  a  Baptist,  so  that  Church  is  dear  to  me  for  her  sake  and 
was  not  a  prison  but  a  home  to  her  fine  sunny  heart  in  which 
she  found  all  grace  and  blessing  in  her  sweet  old  age.  I  was 
also  baptized  into  the  Episcopal  Church,  and  so  she  has  a  lien 
on  me  I  cannot  and  will  not  deny,  while  it  was  very  sweet  and 
good  for  me  a  year  ago  to  stand  close  to  the  old  Church  far 
away  in  England  and  see  them  bear  me  to  the  Font  through 
the  mists  of  seventy-four  years.  I  was  a  scholar  also  for  about 
nine  years  in  a  good  old-fashioned  orthodox  Sunday  School, 
the  only  Divinity  school  that  was  ever  open  to  me,  and  I  con- 
fess myself  a  lifelong  debtor  to  that  school.  In  my  early  man- 
hood I  became  a  Methodist,  and  for  ten  years  was  a  local 
preacher  within  that  pale.  She  was  also  my  nursing  mother ; 
I  have  still  a  tender  regard  for  her.  She  nursed  me  forth  for 
my  ministry  of  fifty  years  all  told  and  nursed  me  well;  while 
my  love  still  takes  me  back  to  visit  the  old  home  now  and  then 
as  Mahomet  in  his  last  years  visited  the  garden  of  his  youth 
and  said  to  his  attendant,  "  Pluck  me  some  fruit  from  that 
tree;  I  know  it  is  very  sweet  and  good." 

So  in  all  the  Churches  I  have  kinsfolk  now  and  friends 


The  Sacrament  325 

whose  hands  clasp  mine  in  the  fellowship  of  the  spirit,  while 
still  we  differ  in  dogma,  in  doctrine,  in  usage  and  ordinance, 
and  I  can  say  in  all  sincerity,  men  and  women  good  and  gener- 
ous of  heart  as  you  are  belong  to  the  Church  of  the  Living 
God,  no  matter  about  the  name  or  denomination.  You  believe 
in  a  sight  of  truth  you  do  not  understand  as  yet,  and  so  do  we. 
We  give  a  greater  place  no  doubt  than  you  do,  to  what  we  call 
reason  and  perhaps  underscore  reason  now  and  then  with  too 
heavy  a  line,  while  we  think  you  underscore  faith  with  too 
heavy  a  line  in  some  directions.  We  think  our  faith  is  the 
best,  while  you  think  yours  is  the  best,  but  I  think  we  should 
all  be  of  the  mind  of  the  old  Divine  who  when  a  youth  that 
had  just  chipped  the  shell  said  to  him,  "  Sir,  I  will  believe 
nothing  I  do  not  understand,"  answered,  "  Then,  sir,  your 
creed  will  be  the  briefest  I  ever  heard  of  in  my  life." 

As  I  said,  I  was  for  ten  years  a  Methodist.  I  have  been  for 
more  than  forty  years  now  a  member  and  minister  of  the  Uni- 
tarian denomination.  Then  I  believed  and  tried  to  teach  the 
truth  held  in  that  church,  now  I  believe  and  try  to  teach  the 
truth  in  the  Church  of  my  love  and  fellowship  which  still  bears 
the  brand  of  heresy.  I  did  not  try  to  believe  in  this  heresy — 
so  called — any  more  than  I  tried  to  grow  to  my  stature  as  a 
man.  The  striving  was  indeed  the  other  way.  I  would  fain 
have  stayed  in  the  old  warm  nest  and  could  not  imagine  what 
would  become  of  me  if  I  should  push  out  and  try  to  do  for 
myself.  But  it  was  all  of  no  use;  the  truths  I  have  accepted 
would  haunt  me  and  master  me,  and  so  I  found  I  must  accept 
them  or  I  could  have  no  peace,  and  being  in  some  sort  a 
preacher  I  must  preach  what  I  most  surely  believed  or  I  could 
have  no  honour;  so  we  parted  company,  the  mother  and  her 
son,  with  a  tender  regret,  and  I  went  forth  not  knowing 
whither  I  went  to  find  this  home  and  ministry  among  the  Uni- 
tarians. 

It  was  fifteen  years  after  I  left  England  and  six  years  after 
entering  this  ministry  that  I  returned  to  visit  my  dear  old 
mother  and  the  household.    We  have  a  very  noble  Church  in 


326      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

the  city  of  Leeds  where  her  home  was  then,  and  they  invited 
me  to  preach  there.  My  mother  went  with  me  to  the  Church. 
I  was  glad  and  proud  to  have  her  go  and  hear  me.  We  went 
home  arm  in  arm  after  the  service.  She  was  silent  for  a  while 
as  we  walked  along  and  then  she  said,  "  My  lad,  I  am  not  sure 
that  I  understood  thy  sermon  or  that  I  could  believe  as  thou 
does  now ;  "  but  then  she  clasped  my  arm  with  a  loving  pres- 
sure and  said,  "  thou  must  be  sure  that  I  believe  in  thee."  And 
I  answered,  "  Mother,  that  is  all  I  care  for,  that  you  shall  be- 
lieve in  me." 

And  now  I  wonder  whether  this  is  not  still  the  best  of  all 
both  for  faith  and  fellowship  among  those  who  differ,  that 
we  shall  believe  each  in  the  other,  and  that  our  beliefs  this  way 
or  that,  are  far  less  a  matter  of  our  free  will  than  we  usually 
imagine;  while  if  we  are  true  to  our  own  souls  and  therefore 
to  God,  we  must  believe  about  as  we  do. 

We  cannot  always  think  alike  or  believe  alike  in  the  most 
sacred  relation  we  can  hold  toward  each  other  in  our  homes; 
how  then  shall  we  do  this  in  the  great  Church  of  the  Living  God 
to  which  we  all  belong  who  are  worthy  the  Christian  name? 

The  oaks  grow  best  alone  but  the  vines  need  a  standard,  and 
as  some  flowers  love  a  day  which  is  three-quarters  shadow 
and  some  love  all  the  sunshine  the  heavens  can  pour  upon 
them,  and  as  all  the  herbs  and  the  fruits  in  a  garden  are  better 
than  any  one,  sweet  and  bitter,  sharp  or  mellow.  As  some  love 
Rembrandt's  pictures  best  with  their  strong  lights  and  shad- 
ows and  some  Raphael's  with  their  floods  of  glory  and  hosts 
of  angels,  while  no  great  gallery  can  be  perfected  with  either 
school  left  out,  so  I  think  we  should  make  up  our  minds  that 
any  Church  which  can  include  these  diversities  of  thinking 
and  believing  in  a  common  fellowship  must  be  more  Godlike 
and  Christlike  than  those  that  insist  on  the  law  of  uniformity 
and  exclusion  and  breed  in  and  in,  like  the  fowls  in  Haw- 
thorne's story,  so  careful  in  their  breed  that  in  the  end  there 
was  only  one  chick  to  their  name  and  he  could  not  crow,  he 
could  only  croak. 


The  Sacrament  327 

Does  my  brother  believe  then  that  only  the  elect  shall  be 
saved  and  like  Davie  Deans  in  "  The  Heart  of  Mid-Lothian  " 
say,  "he  only  kens  of  two  who  hold  to  the  pure  doctrine, 
Davie  Dods  and  ane  ither  he  will  not  name."  And  does 
he  want  me  to  fellowship  with  him  on  these  terms  I  will  say, 
"  Yes  indeed  I  will"  and  then  try  to  enlarge  the  boundaries  of 
his  faith  imtil  they  are  as  broad  as  my  own.  Does  he  say,  "  I 
am  an  atheist,  now  will  you  fellowship  with  me?  "  I  will  an- 
swer, ''  That  must  be  at  your  own  option;  I  will  give  you  my 
hand  and  heart  and  try  to  have  you  believe  as  I  do.  And 
then  if  after  all  you  die  an  atheist,  if  you  have  been  gracious 
and  helpful  toward  your  brother  man,  if  you  have  done  justly, 
loved  mercy  and  walked  humbly  on  your  lonesome  way,  then 
I  tell  you,  my  friend  and  brother,  I  for  one  will  stand  by  your 
dust  if  you  die  first  I  will  say,  '  This  man  was  true  to  himself, 
to  his  humankind,  to  me  and  mine  and  to  all  the  truth  he  could 
find.     Let  us  thank  God  for  the  good  atheist.'  " 

Such  are  the  terms  of  fellowship  I  love  to  hold  for  one.  I 
would  not  say,  are  you  a  praying  man,  or  are  you  a  believing 
man?  I  would  say,  "  Do  you  want  to  be  a  good  man?  "  My 
faith  is  that  the  directest  way  to  heaven  lies  right  through  the 
world  we  live  in,  and  the  best  preparation  for  the  life  to  come 
is  a  sound  and  true  life  down  here,  that  can  be  in  the  world 
and  of  the  world  in  clean  and  wholesome  ways.  I  will  wel- 
come a  man  for  his  manhood  or  the  budding  promise  of  man- 
hood or  the  hope  that  the  bud  will  appear  bye  and  bye.  And 
teach  this  truth  also  for  faith  and  fellowship,  that  we  can  serve 
God  as  truly  in  the  week  days  as  on  the  Sundays,  in  the  forge, 
in  the  shop  or  in  the  field  as  certainly  as  in  the  Church.  That 
this  world  is  no  dismal  prison  house  in  which  all  the  command- 
ments begin  with  Thou  shalt  not.  We  may  make  it  a  sweet 
and  gracious  home  in  which  laughter  shall  be  as  sacred  as 
tears,  and  a  noble  ballad  when  we  want  to  sing  one  as  good  in 
its  time    and  place  as  a  psalm  of  David. 

So  runs  my  faith,  that  God  our  Father  does  not  stand  burn- 
ing with  wrath,  because  we  do  not  believe  in  Him  as  we 


328      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

should;  but  that  He  is  long-suffering  and  gracious,  and  will 
find  a  way  to  bring  us  home  from  our  wanderings  at  last,  all 
the  lambs,  all  the  sheep,  all  the  goats.  Faith  in  God,  in  His 
Christ,  in  His  Holy  Spirit,  in  His  holy  truth,  in  our  human 
mind ;  faith  in  the  good  time  coming  when  shibboleth  and  sib- 
boleth  will  no  longer  be  the  watchwords  or  war  cries  within  the 
Christian  fold,  but  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and 
the  love  of  God,  and  the  fellowship  of  the  Holy  Spirit  will 
clasp  in  all  sects  of  all  the  churches  and  all  the  outsiders,  and 
make  us  all  one,  and  so  usher  in  God's  kingdom  on  the  earth 
as  it  is  in  heaven. 

The  Holy  One  stood  at  the  open  door 

And  His  face  was  fair  to  see, 

When  one  came  up  the  shining  way 

And  moaned  in  his  misery. 

'  Twas  the  soul  of  Judas  Iscariot 

Stood   black   and   sad   and   bare. 

And  cried :  "  I  have  wandered  long  and  far, 

The  darkness  is  everywhere." 

And  there  were  those  who  stood  within, 
Within   the   blessed   light, 
Who  cried :  "  Scourge  thou  the  traitor  soul. 
Away  into  the  night." 

The  Holy  One  stood  at  the  open  door 

And  waved  to  the  man  below ; 

The  third  time  that  He  waved  His  hand 

The   air   was   thick   with   snow. 

And  from  every  flake  of  the  falling  snow, 

Before  it  touched  the  ground, 

There  came  a  dove,  and  all  the  doves 

Made  a  sweet  and  gentle  sound. 

The  Holy  One  stood  at  the  open  door 

And  beckoned,  smiling  sweet; 

'  Twas  the  soul  of  Judas  Iscariot 

Stole  in  and  fell  at  His  feet. 

And  the  Holy  Supper  was  spread  within, 

Where    many    candles    shine. 

But  the  Holy  One  beckoned  for  Judas  to  come 

Before  he  poured  the  wine. 


The  Sacerdotal  Conception  of  Christianity 


The  Sacerdotal  Conception  of 
Christianity 

BY 

The  Reverend  P.  H.  HICKMAN,  B.Sc. 

LET  us  see,  first  of  all,  what  we  mean  by  Christianity. 
"  Christianity  is  faith  in  a  certain  person,  Jesus  Christ, 
and  by  faith  in  Him  is  meant  such  unreserved  self-committal  as 
is  only  possible,  because  faith  in  Jesus  is  understood  to  be  faith 
in  God,  and  union  with  Jesus  union  with  God.  *  We  know 
Him  that  is  true,  and  we  are  in  Him  that  is  true,  even  in  His 
Son,  Jesus  Christ.     This  is  the  true  God,  and  eternal  life.'  " 

"  True  Christianity  is  thus  a  personal  relationship — the  con- 
scious, deliberate  adhesion  of  men  who  know  their  weakness, 
their  sin,  their  fallibility,  to  a  redeemer  whom  they  know  to  be 
supreme,  sinless,  infallible." 

So  it  "  is  the  simple  verdict  of  Christian  history,  that  the 
characteristic  fruitfulness  of  our  religion — its  fruitfulness  in 
the  temper  and  spirit  of  sonship — varies  with  the  extent  to 
which  Jesus,  the  historical  person,  the  ever-living  person,  is 
recognized  as  the  object  of  our  devotion,  and  the  lord  of  our 
life.  This  is  equally  true  of  personal  religion  and  ofBcial  min- 
istry, for  it  is  converse  with  the  perfect  personality  of  Jesus, 
which  gives  the  pastor  his  power  to  deal  with  the  various  per- 
sonalities of  his  flock,  and  the  preacher  his  power  to  move  the 
wills  and  consciences  of  his  hearers.  It  is  devotion  to  Jesus 
which  has  been  the  source  of  the  enduring  forms  of  Christian 
heroism.  It  is  the  same  reality  of  personal  relationship  which 
touches  the  Christian's  private  life  with  the  brightness  of  son- 
ship.  *  To  me,'  says  Paul  the  prisoner,  summarizing  his  re- 
ligion, *  to  live  is  Christ  and  to  die  is  gain,'  for  that  too  is  '  to 
depart  and  to  be  with  Christ,'  which  '  is  very  far  better.' 
'  Eighty  and  six  years,'  says  the  aged  Polycarp,  again  summar- 
izing his  religion  in  response  to  the  demand  that  he  should 

331 


332       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

revile  the  Christ, '  eighty  and  six  years  have  I  been  His  servant, 
and  He  never  did  me  an  injury;  how  then  can  I  blaspheme  my 
king  who  is  my  Saviour?'"  (Chas.  Gore,  M.  A.,  The  In- 
carnation of  the  Son  of  God,  New  York,  1891,  pp.  i, 
2,  6,  7.) 

The  fact  of  the  Incarnation,  that  the  Son  of  God,  *'  the 
Word,  became  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us,"^  is  thus  the 
central  fact  of  Christianity.  And  the  principle  and  method  of 
the  Incarnation,  that  through  the  creature,  through  matter, 
through  "  flesh,"  the  invisible  God  revealed  Himself,  becomes 
the  governing  principle  and  method  of  Christianity.  The  tak- 
ing of  a  human  body  by  the  Son  of  God  as  a  means  of  revela- 
tion of  God  and  of  the  redemption  of  the  world,  establishes  all 
the  means  appointed  by  Him  as  essential,  not  only  upon  the 
ground  of  His  authority,  but  also  upon  the  ground  of  His 
method. 

He  "  builds  His  Church,"  ^  He  ordains  its  unity ,^  He 
trains  and  commissions  a  ministry,*  He  establishes  a  mode  of 
entrance  to  His  Church,^  He  provides  a  method  for  the  nour- 
ishment of  its  members,®  and  for  the  repair  of  their  failures.*^ 
By  all  these  means.  He  unites  His  disciples  to  Himself  and  pro- 
vides for  their  gfrowth  into  a  likeness  to  Him. 

So  the  first  of  the  great  African  Fathers,  and  the  first  Chris- 
tian writer  in  the  language  of  the  West,  Tertullian  of  Carthage 
(writing  between  190  and  220  A.  D.)  paraphrases  the  institu- 
tions of  our  Lord :  "  And  since  the  soul  is,  in  consequence  of 
its  salvation,  chosen  to  the  service  of  God,  it  is  the  flesh  which 
actually  renders  it  capable  of  such  service.  The  flesh,  indeed, 
is  washed  in  order  that  the  soul  may  be  cleansed;  the  flesh  is 
anointed,  that  the  soul  may  be  consecrated ;  the  flesh  is  signed 

*  St.  John  I  :i4.     (All  quotations  are  made  from  the  Revised  Version  ) 
'St.  Matthew   16:18. 

■  St.  John  17:21. 
*St.  Mark  3:i3-i9- 
'  St.   Matthew  28:19. 

•  S  .  Luke  22:19-20. 
^  St.  John  20 :23. 


The  Sacerdotal  Conception  of  Christianity   333 

(with  the  cross),  that  the  soul  too  may  be  fortified;  the  flesh 
is  shadowed  with  the  imposition  of  hands,  that  the  soul  also 
may  be  illumined  by  the  Spirit;  the  flesh  feeds  on  the  Body 
and  Blood  of  Christ,  that  the  soul  may  likewise  fatten  on  its 
God/'i 

If  it  were  possible  to  deny  that  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  had 
founded  a  Church  and  established  a  ministry  in  it;  if  it  could 
be  denied  that  the  forgiveness  of  sins  was  granted  in  Holy 
Baptism  and  by  the  absolution  of  His  ministerial  priesthood 
and  that  the  souls  of  the  faithful  were  ''  strengthened  and  re- 
freshed by  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ  "  it  would  be  possible 
to  declare  that  Christianity  is  not  Sacramental  and  Sacer- 
dotal. 

At  this  point,  let  us  guard  against  any  misuse  of  terms. 

"  It  is  an  abuse  of  the  sacerdotal  conception  if  it  is  supposed 
that  the  priesthood  exists  to  celebrate  sacrifices  or  acts  of  wor- 
ship in  the  place  of  the  body  of  the  people  or  as  their  substitute. 
.  .  .  What  is  the  truth  then?  It  is  that  the  Church  is  one 
body.  The  free  approach  to  God  in  the  Sonship  and  Priesthood 
of  Christ  belongs  to  men  as  members  of  '  one  body '  and  this 
one  body  has  different  organs  through  which  the  functions  of 
its  life  find  expression,  as  it  was  differentiated  by  the  act  and 
appointment  of  Him  who  created  it.  The  reception,  for  in- 
stance, of  Eucharistic  grace,  the  approach  to  God  in  Euchar- 
istic  Sacrifice,  are  functions  of  the  whole  body.  '  We  bless 
the  cup  of  blessing,' '  we  break  the  bread,'  says  St.  Paul,  speak- 
ing for  the  community :  '  zve  offer,'  '  we  present '  is  the  lan- 
guage of  the  liturgies.  But  the  ministry  is  the  organ — the 
necessary  organ — of  these  functions.  It  is  the  hand  which 
offers  and  distributes;  it  is  the  voice  which  consecrates  and 
pleads.  And  the  whole  body  can  no  more  dispense  with  its 
services  than  the  natural  body  can  grasp  or  speak  without  the 
instrumentality  of  hand  and  tongue.  Thus  the  ministry  is  the 
instrument  as  well  as  the  symbol  of  the  Church's  unity,  and  no 

'Tertullian,  On  the  Resurrection  of  the  Flesh,  ch.  8,  p.  5Si,  Vol.  Ill, 
Ante-Nicene  Fathers,  Buffalo,  1885. 


334      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

man  can  share  her  fellowship  except  in  acceptance  of  its 
offices."^ 

This  sacramental  and  sacerdotal  conception  of  Christianity 
prevailed  (as  no  one  denies)  from  the  period  of  the  great 
Ecumenical  councils  to  the  Reformation;  from  the  Council  of 
Nicaea,  A.  D.  325,  to  the  repudiation  of  the  Papal  Supremacy 
by  the  Church  of  England  in  1534,  A.  D.  It  still  prevails  in 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  i.  e.,  speaking  generally,  among 
the  Latin  Nations,  who  inherited  the  traditions  of  the  Western 
Empire.  It  prevails,  also,  in  the  Holy  Orthodox  Church,  both 
among  the  Greeks  and  the  Russians,  the  heirs  of  the  Eastern 
Empire,  and  representatives  of  the  four  Eastern  Patriarch- 
ates, Constantinople,  Alexandria,  Antioch,  and  Jerusalem. 

Was  then  this  prevalence  of  the  sacerdotal  conception  of 
Christianity  at  the  period  of  Ecumenical  councils  due  to  the 
pressure  of  circumstances,  to  some  evolution  of  the  idea  of 
unity  until  it  became  a  leading  idea  of  the  church's  life,  or  on 
the  contrary  is  it  derived  from  the  authority  of  the  Founder, 
and  does  it  "  stand  as  a  necessary  element  of  the  truth  from  the 
very  beginning?  " 

The  question  is  put  in  this  form,  because  the  fundamental 
thought  in  the  sacerdotal  conception  is  the  Unity  of  the 
Church,  as  in  the  Creed  we  confess :  "  I  believe  one  Catholic 
and  Apostolic  Church  "  and  then  "  acknowledge  one  Baptism 
for  the  remission  of  sins." 

It  is  this  unity  which  forms  the  central  thought  of  the  "  con- 
cluding words  of  the  great  High-Priestly  Prayer  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  wherein  the  exposition  and  operation  of  His  work 
is  summed  up,  at  the  close  of  the  last  evening  before  He  died : 
'  As  Thou  didst  send  Me  into  the  world,  even  so  sent  I  them 
into  the  world.  And  for  their  sakes  I  sanctify  Myself,  that  they 
themselves  also  may  be  sanctified  in  truth.  Neither  for  these 
only  do  I  pray,  but  for  them  also  that  believe  on  Me  through 
their  word ;   that  they  may  all  be  one :   even  as  Thou,  Father, 

*  Chas.  Gore,  M.A.,  The  Ministry  of  the  Christian  Church,  New  York, 
1889,  p.  85. 


The  Sacerdotal  Conception  of  Christianity   335 

art  in  Me,  and  I  in  Thee,  that  they  also  may  be  in  Us ;  that  the 
world  may  believe  that  Thou  didst  send  Me.  And  the  glory 
which  Thou  hast  given  Me  I  have  given  unto  them ;  that  they 
may  be  one,  even  as  we  are  one ;  I  in  them  and  Thou  in  Me,  that 
they  may  be  perfected  into  one;  that  the  world  may  know  that 
Thou  didst  send  Me,  and  lovedst  them,  even  as  Thou  lovedst 
Me."     (St.  John.  17:  18-23.) 

Thus  *'  the  unity  which  the  Church  represents  is  the  Unity 
of  God.  It  is  true,  therefore,  of  the  Church,  in  the  highest 
conceivable  sense,  that  her  unity  is  not  to  be  understood  as  a 
growth  which  begins  from  below,  and  gradually  coalesces ;  her 
unity  is  not  the  crown  of  an  evolution  which  starts  from  dis- 
union ;  the  Church  is  one  in  idea  whether  she  is  one  in  fact  or 
not;  her  ideal  unity  from  the  first  is  inherent,  transcendental, 
divine;   she  is  one  essentially,  as  and  because  God  is  One."  ^ 

Moreover,  this  unity  is  visible,  organic,  binding  with  moral 
force  and  for  moral  purposes  upon  every  disciple  of  the  Lord. 
Such  is  the  meaning  of  the  practical  appeal  of  St.  Paul  to  the 
members  of  the  Church :  "  I,  therefore,  the  prisoner  in  the 
Lord,  beseech  you  to  work  worthily  of  the  calling  wherewith 
ye  were  called,  with  all  lowliness  and  meekness,  with  long-suf- 
fering, forbearing  one  another  in  love;  giving  diligence  to 
keep  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace.  There  is 
one  body,  and  one  Spirit,  even  as  also  we  were  called  in  one 
hope  of  your  calling;  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism,  one 
God  and  Father  of  all,  who  is  over  all,  and  through  all,  and  in 
all."     (Eph.  4:1-6.) 

Commenting  on  this  passage,  says  Dr.  Hort :  "  The  com- 
parison of  men  in  society  to  members  of  a  body  was  of  course 
not  new.  With  the  Stoics  in  particular,  it  was  much  in  vogue. 
What  was  distinctively  Christian  was  the  faith  in  the  One  bap- 
tizing and  life-giving  Spirit,  the  one  uniting  body  of  Christ,  the 
one  all  working,  all  inspiring  God.  .  .  .  According  to  St.  Paul, 
as  Christ  '  is  before  all  things  and  all  things  in  Him  consist  * 
(Col.  1 :  17),  so  also  it  was  God's  purpose  in  the  course  of  ages 

'  R.  C.  Moberley,  D.D.,  Ministerial  Priesthood,  New  York,  1898,  p.  6. 


336     ^Theology  at  the  Close  of  the  Century 

*  to  sum  up  all  things  in  Him,  the  things  in  the  heavens  and  the 
things  in  the  earth."  (Eph.  i :  10;  cf.  Col.  i  :  20.)  Part  of  this 
universal  primacy  of  His  (Col.  i :  18)  involved  in  His  exalta- 
tion to  the  right  hand  of  God  as  the  completion  of  His  Resur- 
rection, was  (Eph.  1 :  22,  f.)  that  God  *  gave  Him  as  Head  over 
all  things  to  the  Ecclesia  which  is  His  body,  the  fulfillment  of 
Him  who  is  fulfilled  all  things  in  all;  '  or  as  in  Col.  i :  18)  : 
'  Himself  is  the  Head  of  the  body,  the  Ecclesia.'  The  relation 
thus  set  forth  under  a  figure  is  mutual.  The  work  which 
Christ  came  to  do  on  earth  was  not  completed  when  He  passed 
from  the  sight  of  men.  He  the  Head,  needed  a  body  of  mem- 
bers for  its  full  working  out  through  the  ages.  .  .  .  And  on 
the  other  hand  His  disciples  had  no  intelligible  unity  apart 
from  their  ascended  Head."^ 

Into  this  unity,  says  St.  Paul  in  an  earlier  Epistle  (A.  D. 
57,  I  Cor.  xii:  13),  presenting  in  this  passage  (vv.  12-28) 
what  is  afterward  developed  in  Ephesians;  into  this  unity  are 
we  all  instrumentally  brought :  "  For  in  one  Spirit  were  we  all 
baptized  into  one  body,  whether  Jews  or  Greeks,  whether  bond 
or  free,  and  were  all  made  to  drink  of  one  Spirit." 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  to  find  the  Baptismal  interro- 
gation in  Carthage,  under  the  Episcopate  of  St.  Cyprian  (248- 
258  A.  D.)  inquiring:  "Dost  thou  believe  remission  of  sins 
and  eternal  life  through  the  holy  church?"  (Ep.  69:7;  cf. 
Ep.  80 :  2,  Oxford  ed. ) 

In  this  ''  one  body,"  St.  Paul  claims  his  office  as  an  Apostle 
(Col.  1 :  24)  :  ''  Now  I  rejoice  in  my  sufferings  for  your  sake, 
and  fill  up  on  my  part  that  which  is  lacking  of  the  afflictions  of 
Christ  in  my  fiesh  for  His  body's  sake,  which  is  the  church; 
whereof  I  was  made  a  minister ;  "  "  an  ambassador  on  behalf 
of  Christ."  (2  Cor.  5:20.)  And  this  equally  with  "The 
Twelve,"  by  a  divine  Commission,  an  "  Apostle  (not  from 
men,  neither  through  man,  but  through  Jesus  Christ,  and  God 
the  Father,  who  raised  Him  from  the  dead)."      (Gal.  1:1.) 

Of  this  Apostolate,  "  the  fundamental  character  and  war- 

'  F.  J.  A.  Hort,  D.D.,  The  Christian  Ecclesia,  London,  1898,  p.  147. 


The  Sacerdotal  Conception  of  Christianity   337 

rant,"  the  divine  commission,  was  given  by  the  risen  Lord: 
"  Peace  be  unto  you ;  as  the  Father  has  sent  Me,  even  so  send 
I  you.  And  when  He  had  said  this.  He  breathed  on  them, 
and  saith  unto  them :  '  Receive  ye  the  Holy  Ghost ;  whoseso- 
ever sins  ye  forgive,  they  are  forgiven  unto  them ;  and  whose- 
soever sins  ye  retain  they  are  retained.'  "  (St.  John  20:  19- 
23;  cf.  17:21.) 

The  exercise  of  this  '"  commission  of  authority  for  govern- 
ment "  is  constantly  illustrated  in  the  Acts  (6:6;  1 5  :  28 ;  14 : 
23;  21 :  18)  and  the  Epistles  (see  especially  i  Tim.  2  and  3; 
Titus  1:5  f.). 

The  nature  of  the  ministry  thus  established  in  the  "one 
body,"  by  divine  commission,  as  understood  by  the  church  at 
the  close  of  the  first  century,  is  set  forth  by  St.  Clement  of 
Rome,  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  chapters  37  to  44.  The 
letter  (A.  D.  96)  was  probably  written  while  St.  John  was  still 
living  at  Ephesus.  (Bishop  Westcott,  Speaker's  Commen- 
tary, Introd.  to  St.  John,  p.  xxix.) 

"All  cannot  be  captains  or  generals,"  (I  quote  the  para- 
phrase of  Dr.  Moberley,  pp.  114-115,  Ministerial  Priesthood), 
"  but  all  are  arranged  from  the  Emperor  downwards,  in  a  com- 
pletely articulated  hierarchical  system.  So  it  is  with  the  body 
and  its  members,  in  the  language  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Corinthians. 
And  such  must  be  the  unity  of  the  Body  of  Christ — based  upon 
mutual  submission,  dependence,  subordination.  Self-assertion 
and  pride  are  the  characteristics  of  fools.  There  is  order  every- 
where— order  of  places,  times,  persons — as  the  sacrifices  of 
old  had  appointed  places  and  times;  and  the  high  priest, 
priests,  Levites,  people,  their  distinct  and  co-ordinate  offices. 
Everything,  then,  and  every  one  in  place  and  order.  God 
sent  forth  Christ ;  Christ  sent  forth  His  Apostles.  The  Apos- 
tles, from  their  converts,  constituted  bishops  and  deacons.  So 
Moses  of  old  established  a  graduated  hierarchy  and  silenced 
the  voice  of  jealousy  against  the  priesthood  by  the  blossoming 

^  See  Dr.  Moberley,  Ministerial  Priesthood,  p.  127,  note  2 ;  and  Canon 
Gore.  The  Church  and  the  Ministry,  p.  229,  note  4. 


338      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

rod  of  Aaron  laid  up  in  the  Ark  of  God.  In  parallel-wise,  the 
Apostles,  foreseeing  the  jealousies  which  should  arise  about 
ministerial  office,  did  not  merely,  as  has  been  said,  constitute 
bishops  and  deacons,  but  afterwards  also  made  provision,  in 
case  of  their  decease,  for  a  continuous  succession  of  ministerial 
office.  Those,  then,  who  have  once  been  duly  constituted  min- 
isters, either  by  Apostles,  or  by  other  faithful  men  after  them, 
with  the  consent  of  the  whole  Church,  can  never  justly  be  de- 
posed from  the  ministry  which  they  have  so  long  and  blame- 
lessly exercised.  Such  deposition  of  men,  who  without  scandal 
or  irreverence  have  exercised  the  presbyterial  office,  and  offered 
the  gifts  of  the  Church,  would  involve  the  Church  in  grave 
sin." 

On  this  exposition  of  the  ministry,  Dr.  Moberley  comments : 
"  I  submit  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  stronger  asser- 
tion than  this,  of  the  principle  that  ministerial  office  is  an  out- 
ward and  orderly  institution,  dependent  for  its  validity  upon 
transmission,  continuous  and  authorized,  from  the  Apostles, 
whose  own  commission  was  direct  from  Jesus  Christ "   (p. 

"5)- 

The  teaching  of  St.  Ignatius  is  well-known.  "  He  is,  be- 
yond question,"  says  Canon  Gore  (The  Christian  Ministry,  p. 
292 )  "  the  greatest  theologian  among  *  the  Apostolic  Fathers,' 
with  his  deep  insight  into  the  Incarnation  as  a  principle,  a  fact, 
a  doctrine,  and  with  his  power  to  hold  in  balance  its  great  an- 
tithesis in  all  its  applications — the  antithesis  of  the  spiritual  and 
the  material,  of  the  Word  made  Flesh."  It  will  suffice  to  quote 
from  one  of  his  seven  Epistles.  "  See,"  he  says  to  the  Smyr- 
naeans,  "  that  ye  all  follow  the  bishop,  even  as  Jesus  Christ 
does  the  Father,  and  the  presbytery  as  ye  would  the  Apostles, 
and  reverence  the  deacons  as  being  the  institution  of  God.  Let 
no  man  do  anything  connected  with  the  Church  without  the 
bishop.  Let  that  be  deemed  a  proper  Eucharist  which  is  (ad- 
ministered) either  by  the  bishop,  or  by  one  to  whom  he  has  en- 
trusted it.  Wherever  the  bishop  shall  appear,  there  let  the 
multitude   (of  the  people)   also  be;  even  as  wherever  Jesus 


The  Sacerdotal  Conception  of  Christianity   339 

Christ  is,  there  is  the  Catholic  Church.  It  is  not  lawful  with- 
out the  bishop  either  to  baptize  or  to  celebrate  a  love-feast ;  but 
whatsoever  he  shall  approve  of,  that  is  also  pleasing  to  God, 
so  that  everything  that  is  done  may  be  secure  and  valid." 
(The  Ante-Nicene  Fathers,  Vol.  I,  pp.  89,  90,  Ch.  VIII.) 

Thus  the  East  answers  to  the  West,  Antioch  to  Rome,  at 
the  close  of  the  first  and  the  beginning  of  the  second  century. 

At  the  close  of  the  second  century,  the  Church  was  adorned 
by  the  life  and  teaching  of  three  great  theologians;  in  Gaul, 
Irenaeus  (Bishop  of  Lyons,  177-202) ;  in  Alexandria  of 
Egypt,  Clement  (head  of  the  famous  catechetical  school,  190- 
202)  ;  in  Africa,  at  Carthage,  Tertullian  (190-220).  The  tes- 
timony of  these  three  centres  to  the  Divine  Foundation,  the 
Unity,  and  the  Continuity  of  the  Church,  and  the  expression  of 
that  Unity  in  the  Ministry,  is  uniform. 

"  Is  it  probable,"  exclaims  the  epigrammatic  Tertullian, 
"  that  so  many  Churches  of  such  importance  should  have  hit 
by  an  accident  of  error  on  an  identical  creed?"  (The  Pre- 
scription against  Heretics,  Chap.  XXVIII.  Ante-Nicene  Fath- 
ers, vol.  Ill,  p.  256.) 

Clement  of  Alexandria  thus  concludes  his  argument  against 
the  "  new  invention  "  of  "  later  heresies."  "  In  the  nature  of 
the  One  God,  then,  is  associated  in  a  joint  heritage  the  one 
Church,  which  they  strive  to  cut  asunder  into  many  sects." 

"  Therefore,  in  substance  and  idea,  in  origin,  in  pre-em- 
inence, we  say  that  the  ancient  and  Catholic  Church  is  alone." 
(The  Stromata,  Ch.  XVII,  Book  VII,  The  Ante-Nicene 
Fathers,  Vol.  II.  p.  554.) 

To  Irenaeus  of  Lyons,  "  The  true  knowledge  "  (so  he  calls 
the  Christian  Faith)  *'  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Apostles,  and  the 
ancient  system  of  the  Church  in  all  the  world;  and  the  char- 
acter of  the  body  of  Christ,  according  to  the  successions  of 
the  bishops,  to  whom  they  (the  Apostles)  delivered  the  Church 
in  each  separate  place."  (The  Ante-Nicene  Fathers,  Book 
IV,  Ch.  33,  Sec.  8,  p.  508.) 

In  his  Prescription  against  Heretics  (Ch.  20,  p.  252),  Ter- 


340      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

tullian  expands  this  statement  of  the  bishop  of  Lyons  into  a 
precise  and  systematic  definition. 

Thus  the  sacerdotal  conception  of  Christianity  prevails  at 
the  end  of  the  second  century  in  the  representative  centres  of 
the  Church  and  the  conception  is  held  as  well  in  the  func- 
tions as  in  the  foundation,  unity,  and  continuity  of  the  Church. 

In  the  treatise  "''  On  Baptism/'  the  earliest  treatise  on  the 
first  Christian  Sacrament,  the  doctrine  of  Baptismal  Regen- 
eration is  expressed  by  Tertullian  as  clearly  and  definitely  as  in 
the  Book  of  Common  Prayer;  in  the  treatise  '"  On  Penitence/' 
he  urged  the  motives  for  the  use  of  the  "  plank  after  ship- 
v^^reck  "  and  the  benefits  of  its  use  (see  especially  Chaps.  IV, 
IX,  pp.  659,  664,  A-N.  Fathers,  Vol.  III.).  Irenaeus 
holds  the  doctrine  of  the  Real  Presence  of  Christ  in  the 
Eucharist  as  firmly  as  St.  Paul  (i  Cor.  11:29)  or  Justin 
Martyr  (The  Apology,  I,  61,  65-67,  A-N.  Fathers,  Vol.  i, 
pp.  183,  185)  : — "The  mixed  cup  and  the  bread  which  has 
been  made  receives  the  word  of  God  and  the  Eucharist  be- 
comes the  Body  (and  Blood)  of  Christ,  and  the  substance  of 
our  flesh  grows  and  gains  consistence  from  these.  How,  then, 
can  they  say  our  flesh  is  not  susceptible  of  the  gift  of  God, 
which  is  eternal  life — our  flesh  which  is  nourished  by  the 
Body  and  Blood  of  the  Lord,  and  which  is  His  member."  (V. 
2,  3,  A-N.  Fathers,  p.  528.) 

It  was  said  that  in  the  Church  the  sacerdotal  conception  of 
Christianity  prevailed  from  the  period  of  the  great  councils 
to  the  Reformation  (and  this  no  one  doubted),  and  still  pre- 
vails in  the  Greek  and  Roman  Churches,  and  did  prevail  in  the 
Church  of  England  till  the  Reformation.  It  is  now  clear  that 
it  prevailed  in  the  undivided  Church  from  the  day  of  Pen- 
tecost to  the  Nicene  Council,  and  the  Archbishops  of  Eng- 
land declare  that  it  has  prevailed  in  the  Church  of  England 
since  the  Reformation  and  prevails  at  this  day. 

The  Archbishops  declare  in  their  "  Answer  to  the  Apostolic 
Letter  of  Pope  Leo  XIII  on  English  Ordinations  " :  ''  He  de- 
clares that  we  deny  or  corrupt  the  Sacrament  of  Order,  that 


The  Sacerdotal  Conception  of  Christianity   341 

we  reject  (viz.  in  the  Ordinal)  all  idea  of  consecration  and 
sacrifice,  until  at  last  the  offices  of  Presbyter  and  Bishop  are 
left  '  mere  names  without  the  reality  which  Christ  insti- 
tuted.' " 

"  Now,  the  intention  of  our  Church,  not  merely  of  a  newly- 
formed  party  in  it,  is  quite  clearly  set  forth  in  the  title  and  pref- 
ace of  the  Ordinal.  The  title  in  1552  ran:  '  The  fourme  and 
maner  of  makynge  and  consecratynge  Bishoppes,  Priestes, 
and  Deacons.'  The  preface  immediately  following  begins 
thus :  *  It  is  euident  unto  all  men,  diligently  readinge  holye 
Scripture  and  auncient  aucthours,  that  from  the  Apostles  tyme 
there  hathe  bene  these  ordres  of  Ministers  in  Christ's  Church : 
Bishoppes,  Priestes,  and  Deacons;  which  Offices  were  euer- 
more  had  in  suche  reuerent  estimacion,  that  no  man  by  his  own 
private  authoritie  might  presume  to  execute  any  of  them,  ex- 
cept he  were  first  called,  tried,  examined,  and  knowen  to  have 
such  qualities  as  were  requisite  for  the  same ;  and  also,  by  pub- 
lique  prayer,  with  imposicion  of  hands,  approued,  and  admitted 
thereunto.  And  therefore,  to  the  entent  that  these  orders 
should  bee  continued,  and  reuerentlye  used  and  estemed,  in 
this  Church  of  England;  it  is  requysite  that  no  man  .(not  beyng 
at  thys  presente  Bisshope,  Priest,  nor  Deacon,  shall  execute 
anye  of  them,  excepte  he  be  called,  tryed,  examined,  and  ad- 
mitted, accordynge  to  the  form  hereafter  folowinge.'  Further 
on,  it  is  stated  incidentally  that  *'  euery  man  which  is  to  be 
consecrated  a  Bishop  shal  be  fully  thyrtie  yeres  of  age.'  And 
in  the  rite  itself,  the  '  consecration '  of  the  Bishop  is  repeat- 
edly mentioned.  The  succession  and  continuance  of  these  of- 
fices from  the  Lord  through  the  Apostles  and  the  other  min- 
isters of  the  primitive  Church  is  also  clearly  implied  in  the 
'  Eucharistical '  prayers  which  precede  the  words.  Receive 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Thus  the  intention  of  our  Fathers  was  to 
keep  and  continue  these  offices  which  come  down  from  the 
earliest  times,  and  *  reverently  to  use  and  esteem  them,'  in 
the  sense,  of  course,  in  which  they  were  received  from  the 
Apostles  and  had  been  up  to  that  time  in  use." 


342      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

And,  the  Archbishops  declare :  "  We  make  provision  with 
the  greatest  reverence  for  the  consecration  of  the  holy  Eucha- 
rist, and  commit  it  only  to  properly  ordained  priests  and  to 
no  other  ministers  of  the  Church.  Further,  we  truly  teach  the 
doctrine  of  Eucharistic  sacrifice,  and  do  not  believe  it  to  be  a 
*  nude  commemoration  of  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Cross,'  an  opin- 
ion which  seems  to  be  attributed  to  us  by  the  quotation  made 
from  that  Council.  But  we  think  it  sufficient  in  the  Liturgy 
which  we  use  in  celebrating  the  Holy  Eucharist — while  lift- 
ing up  our  hearts  to  the  Lord,  and  when  now  consecrating 
the  gifts  already  offered  that  they  may  become  to  us  the  Body 
and  Blood  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ — to  signify  the  sacrifice 
which  is  offered  at  that  point  of  the  service  in  such  terms  as 
these.  We  continue  a  perpetual  memory  of  the  precious  death 
of  Christ,  who  is  our  Advocate  with  the  Father  and  the  pro- 
pitiation for  our  sins,  according  to  His  precept,  until  His 
coming  again.  For  first,  we  offer  the  sacrifice  of  praise  and 
thanksgiving;  then  next  we  plead,  and  represent  before  the 
Father  the  sacrifice  of  the  Cross,  and  by  it  we  confidently  en- 
treat remission  of  sins,  and  all  other  benefits  of  the  Lord's 
Passion  for  all  the  whole  Church;  and,  lastly,  we  offer  the 
sacrifice  of  ourselves  to  the  Creator  of  all  things  which  we 
have  already  signified  by  the  oblation  of  His  creatures.  This 
whole  action,  in  which  the  people  has  necessarily  to  take  its 
part  with  the  priest,  we  are  accustomed  to  call  the  Eucharistic 
sacrifice." 


Divorce  and  Remarriage 


Divorce  and  Remarriage 

BY 

The  Right  Reverend  WILLIAM  CROSWELL  DOANE,  D.D. 

THE  Church  represents  three  distinct  shades  of  thought  and 
conviction  upon  this  very  important  question.  First,  of 
those  who  are  convinced  that  there  can  be  no  remarriage  after 
divorce  for  any  cause  during  the  lifetime  of  the  other  party  to 
the  marriage.  Secondly,  of  those  who  so  far  doubt  the  legal- 
ity, that  they  dare  not  give  such  a  marriage  the  sanction  of  the 
Church,  and  yet  so  far  admit  the  possibility  of  the  authenticity 
and  intention  of  our  Lord's  words  regarding  a  divorce  for 
unfaithfulness,  as  to  be  unable  positively  to  declare  its  illegal- 
ity. And  thirdly,  of  those  who  are  so  clear  of  the  exception 
as  divinely  allowed,  that  they  think  it  warrants  the  giving  of 
the  sanction  and  of  the  Sacraments  of  the  Church  in  the  case 
of  this  one  remarriage.  Three  wide  lines  of  difference,  clearly 
drawn,  strongly  held,  earnestly  urged.  I  believe,  however, 
that  more  and  more  examination  and  education  will  bring  our 
Church  to  recognize  and  realize  that  the  only  safety  for  the 
sacredness  of  marriage,  the  purity  of  society,  the  protection  of 
the  family  and  the  sanctity  of  the  home,  is  to  refuse  the  sanc- 
tion of  the  Church  to  all  remarriage  of  divorced  persons,  guilty 
or  innocent,  for  whatever  cause. 

In  the  study  of  this  subject,  before  I  come  to  the  crucial 
difficulty  of  text  and  interpretations,  there  are  two  undis- 
puted and  I  think  indisputable  facts,  namely,  that  during 
two  marked  and  important  periods  of  the  history  of  the 
Church,  the  law  and  use  about  remarriage  are  positive  and 
clear.  One  of  these  periods  is  Primitive  and  the  other  is  Eng- 
lish. When  Mr.  Gladstone  said  in  1857  that  divorce  with  re- 
marriage was  unknown  in  Christendom  for  300  years;  and 
when  Mr.  Keble  wrote  and  proved  that  there  was  almost  a 
consensus  patrum  until  A.  D.  314  on  the  absolute  inviolability 
of  marriage,  they  were  asserting,  after  minute  investigation, 

345 


346       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

an  indisputable  fact.  The  references  in  Mr.  Keble's  ''  sequel 
to  his  argument  that  the  nuptial  bond  is  indissoluble  "  begin 
with  St.  Paul's  strong  statements  and  end  with  the  forty- 
seventh  Apostolic  Canon,  including  the  testimony  of  Hermas, 
Justin  Martyr,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Tertullian  and  Origen, 
so  covering  "  the  whole  of  Christendom  "  according  to  its 
bounds  in  that  age,  the  East,  Egypt,  Africa  and  Rome.  Quo- 
tations from  the  canons  of  Eliberis  A.  D.  305  to  313,  and  the 
canon  of  Aries  A.  D.  314,  at  which  council  two  or  perhaps 
three  British  Bishops  were  present,  exhibit  the  same  principle 
acting  in  Spain  and  in  Gaul.  I  shall  hope  to  have  the  oppor- 
tunity, in  some  day  of  larger  leisure,  to  collect  and  publish 
these  authorities.  Meanwhile,  because  Mr.  Keble's  statements 
need  no  verifying,  we  may  assume  them  to  be  true.  This 
brings  us  down  to  a  marked  and  momentous  period  in  the 
Christian  Story,  which  may  be  variously  described  as  the  time 
when  Constantine  became  Christianized  or  when  Christianity 
became  Constantinized.  Certain  it  is  that  the  first  departure 
from  the  old  rule  is  to  be  found  in  the  Divine  Institutions  of 
Lactantius,  tutor  to  Constantine's  son,  which  contain  the 
statement  that  the  tie  of  the  marriage  covenant  may  never  be 
undone  except  when  it  is  broken  by  faithlessness ;  and  again, 
that  he  is  an  adulterer  who,  except  for  the  cause  of  adultery, 
hath  dismissed  his  wife  to  marry  another.  It  is  to  be  noted 
as  marking  the  danger  of  departure  from  the  strict  rule,  that 
within  seven  years  after  this,  when  Constantine  promulgated 
his  law  of  divorce,  which  was  a  civil  and  not  an  ecclesias- 
tical rescript,  it  included  four  other  grounds  of  legal  divorce, 
murder,  sorcery,  the  violation  of  graves,  pandering  to  unchas- 
tity  in  others.  And  it  is  to  be  noted  also  that  the  Bishops  most 
in  favour  at  court  at  this  time,  were  those  who  were  known 
either  as  Arians  or  Indifferentists. 

The  second  undisputed  fact  is  that  the  Church  of  England, 
in  her  canons  and  in  her  customs,  following  the  course  of  her 
Bishops  in  the  Council  of  Aries,  from  the  Norman  Conquest, 
through  the  Reformation  and  down  to  the  present  day,  has 


Divorce  and  Remarriage  347 

never  recognized  divorce  with  the  right  of  remarriage.  This 
was  true  also  of  the  civil  law  of  England  until  forty  years  ago. 
The  primitive  and  the  Anglican  authority  therefore  are  in 
entire  accord,  and  altogether  on  the  side  of  the  indissolubility 
of  the  marriage  bond  except  by  death.  Between  these  two 
points,  the  Primitive  and  the  Anglican,  what  occurs?  In  the 
East,  Erastianism,  going  from  bad  to  worse,  from  one  to  four, 
from  four  to  sixteen  causes  of  divorce.  And  in  the  West,  what 
has  been  called  by  an  admirable  collocation  of  adjectives, 
though  sometimes  misapplied,  a  course  of  conduct,  "  Latin  and 
disingenuous."  That  is,  the  Roman  Church  has  in  the  letter 
of  her  laws  upheld  nobly  and  boldly  the  sanctity  of  marriage 
but,  after  her  manner,  she  has  managed,  by  the  application  of 
the  rite  of  marriages  annulled  and  of  Papal  dispensations,  to 
make  the  law  elastic  and  inclusive,  through  a  list  of  prohibi- 
tions, which  made  marriages  unlawful  from  the  first  on  grounds 
often  unknown  to  the  contracting  parties,  and  so  to  destroy 
the  practical  value  of  her  catholic  profession.  Alas,  it  is  the 
old  story,  Romae  omnia  venalia.  One  says  it  with  shame  and 
with  sorrow  because  the  appearance,  the  utterance,  and  in  the 
majority  of  cases  the  practical  application  of  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic law,  has  made  divorce  difficult  and  remarriage  after  it  rare. 
But  it  leaves  the  primitive  centuries  and  the  English  Church 
for  nine  hundred  years,  still,  as  bearing  the  most  manly  and  con- 
sistent testimony  to  this  great  fact.  The  suggestion  that  the 
condition  of  social  morals  in  Continental  countries  is  an  argu- 
ment against  strong  laws  about  marriage  and  difficulty  of 
divorce  has  no  such  application.  Because  impurity  is  a  matter 
of  climate  and  race  rather  than  of  ecclesiastical  relation,  as  is 
easily  seen  by  the  fact  that  there  are  no  purer  women  in  the 
world  than  the  women  of  Roman  Catholic  Ireland. 

If  it  is  true  that  prominent  ministers  of  other  religious 
bodies  have  said  openly  that  they  were  tired  of  marrying  people 
whom  we  would  not  marry,  it  means  that  a  strong  stand  taken 
by  this  Church  will  lift  the  standard  of  all  religious  denomina- 
tions to  a  higher  level.     And  the  time  will  not  be  far  distant 


348      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

when  we  shall  have  no  need  to  discriminate  between  those 
whom  we  marry  and  those  whom  we  admit  to  the  Sacraments ; 
because  the  positive  teaching  of  this  Church  and  its  influence 
elsewhere  will  go  far  toward  making  divorce  difficult  and  re- 
marriage after  it  a  thing  unthought  of.  Meanwhile  it  must 
be  insisted  that  our  present  canon  takes  higher  ground  than 
that  which  is  ordinarily  held,  in  allowing  only  one  cause  for 
divorce  with  remarriage ;  that  we  are  not  considering  the  ques- 
tion of  legal  separation,  when  living  together  as  man  and  wife 
seems  impossible;  and  that  no  reference  can  be  had,  in  this 
argument  or  in  any  canon  that  may  be  passed,  to  persons  who 
had  contracted  marriages,  by  the  express  permission  of  the 
present  canon. 

I  pass  to  a  brief  summary  of  the  grounds  on  which  I  hold  the 
view  that  by  the  teaching  of  Holy  Scripture  the  marriage  bond 
is  indissoluble,  that  separation  is  permitted  in  one  case  only, 
but  that  no  remarriage  is  possible  under  any  conditions.  I 
speak,  not  with  the  authority  of  a  scholar,  which  I  have  never 
had  time  to  become,  but  of  a  careful  student  seeking  only 
truth.  The  question  turns,  of  course,  upon  the  authenticity 
and  meaning  of  our  Lord's  words  in  the  nineteenth  chapter  of 
the  Holy  Gospel  according  to  St.  Matthew.  Allowing  that 
the  words  ought  to  stand,  and  that  they  mean  what  they  seem 
to  mean  in  the  English  version  of  the  passage,  the  deduction 
from  them  in  our  present  canon,  and  in  a  canon  proposed 
in  1897  is  based  upon  a  series  of  inferences.  At  best  they 
contain  a  negative  non-prohibition,  which  it  is  proposed  to 
turn  into  a  positive  permission.  They  refer  only  to  the  man 
putting  away  his  wife,  and  are  inferred  to  apply  to  the  woman. 
And  they  use  the  word  vopvefa  which  is,  to  say  the  least,  prob- 
ably not  the  same  as  /xotxcta;  the  distinction  between  the  two 
sins  being  expressed  in  the  English  as  well  as  in  the  Greek  by 
two  different  words.  Then  comes  the  question  as  to  whether 
our  Lord  used  these  words,  and  zvhen  He  used  them,  and  if 
He  did,  and  with  what  intention ;  about  which  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  as  St.  Matthew 


Divorce  and  Remarriage  349 

records  it.  there  is  no  reference  to  remarriage.  The  text  reads 
there,  "  Whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife,  save  for  the  cause 
of  fornication,  causeth  her  to  commit  adultery."  And  the 
words  in  the  Greek  are  -n-apcKTos  \6yov  Tropvcta?,  which  certainly 
means  "  apart  from,"  "  leaving  to  one  side,"  "  not  considering 
the  cause."  The  sentence  then  would  mean,  "  Whosoever 
shall  put  away  his  wife  (I  am  not  speaking  of  fornication, 
which  if  it  means  uncleanness  before  marriage  is  provided  for 
by  the  permission  to  annul  the  marriage;  and  if  it  means  adul- 
tery is  provided  for  by  the  requirement  to  put  the  adulteress 
to  death)  causeth  her  to  commit  adultery."  In  the  fuller 
statement  that  is  contained  in  the  nineteenth  chapter  of  the 
Gospel  the  expression  is  apparently  different.  There  is  an 
allusion  here  to  the  possibility  of  remarriage  after  putting 
away.  '*  Whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife,  except  it  be  for 
fornication,  and  shall  marry  another,  committeth  adultery." 
The  words  in  the  commonly  received  Greek  text  are,  ci  m  inl 
TTopviia'  It  is,  to  say  the  least,  doubtful  if  our  translators  ren- 
der these  words  accurately,  for  ct  m  means  probably  "  if  not  " 
or  "  though  not  "  for  fornication,  which  would  make  this,  not 
an  exception,  but  an  exemplification  and  illustration.  But 
there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  case  is  stronger  than 
this.  The  revisers  in  their  note  say  '*  some  ancient  authorities 
read,  as  in  chapter  v :  32,"  that  is  to  say,  as  in  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount.  So  also  Lachmann.  And  the  Syriac  translation, 
the  famous  Complutensian  edition,  and  such  editors  of  the 
Greek  text  as  Griesbach,  Tregelles,  Tischendorf,  Mill,  Burton, 
such  commentators  as  Grotius  and  Lucas  Brugensis  and  Selden 
and  before  them  Chrysostom  and  Augustine  omit  the  «  and 
read  m,  which  make  synonymous  and  consistent  our  Lord's 
words  here  and  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

"  Whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife  (I  am  not  speaking  of 
uncleanness  and  unfaithfulness,  which  are  provided  for  by  an- 
other law  annulling  or  putting  away)  and  shall  marry  another 
committeth  adultery."  And  the' words,  probably,  be  they  ex- 
ception or  qualification,  refer  not  to  the  marriage  but  to  the 


350  Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century- 
putting  away;  forbidding  divorce,  that  is  to  say,  for  any  but 
the  one  cause,  instead  of  for  the  innumerable  causes  allowed 
by  rabbinical  accretions  and  additions  to  the  law  of  Moses,  but 
giving  no  permission  to  remarry.  **  Is  it  lawful,"  the  Phari- 
sees ask,  ''  to  put  away  for  any  cause?  "  and  our  Lord  said, 
''  No,  only  for  one  cause,  uncleanness  or  unfaithfulness." 

It  is  a  most  weighty  addition  to  this  whole  argument  that  all 
three  evangelists  record  the  language  of  our  Lord,  as  to  the 
remarriage  of  the  person  put  away  or  divorced,  in  the  same 
sweeping  terms, — "  Whosoever  marrieth,"  not  the  woman  put 
away,  which  might  mean  the  adulteress,  but  '*  a  woman,"  any 
woman,  "  put  away,"  or  as  St.  Luke  has  it ''  a  woman  put  away 
from  a  husband,"  committeth  adultery.  And  this  being  true, 
it  follows,  that  if  no  man  can  marry  any  woman  put  away  from 
any  husband  without  being  guilty  of  adultery,  it  must  be  be- 
cause the  marriage  bond  is  not  dissolved  by  divorce,  because 
she  is  still  the  wife  of  the  husband  who  has  put  her  away.  The 
man  cannot  marry  because  he  has  a  wife,  and  the  woman  can- 
not marry  because  she  has  a  husband. 

We  must  add  to  this  the  fact  that  the  first  words  recorded  in 
this  nineteenth  chapter  of  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  were  spoken  to 
Jews  in  answer  to  a  particular  question,  and  were  intended 
plainly  to  limit  the  loose  mode  of  the  Jews  of  that  day  in  en- 
larging and  distorting  the  permission  which  Moses,  not  God, 
had  granted  them  because  of  the  hardness  of  their  hearts.  But 
when  St.  Mark  tells  the  same  story  he  records  the  fact  that, 
speaking  to  the  disciples  in  the  house,  not  of  the  past  nor  to  the 
Pharisees,  nor  in  regard  to  Mosaic  law,  but  speaking  of  the 
future,  to  those  who  were  to  continue  His  preaching,  and  in 
regard  to  Christian  principle,  Christ  made  the  statement  simple 
and  unexceptional  and  clear.  "  And  he  saith  unto  them,  who- 
soever shall  put  away  his  wife,  and  marry  another,  committeth 
adultery  against  her.  And  if  a  woman  shall  put  away  her  hus- 
band, and  be  married  to  another,  she  committeth  adultery." 
And  when  we  turn  back  to  St.  Matthew's  story  of  the  effect 
thus  produced  on  the  disciples,  it  is  quite  evident  that  they  un- 


Divorce  and  Remarriage  351 

derstood  the  saying  to  mean  that  no  man  putting  away  and  no 
woman  put  away  could  marry  again,  for,  they  said,  *'  if  the 
case  be  so  of  the  man  with  his  wife,  it  is  not  good  to  marry," 
and  Jesus  said  "  all  men  cannot  receive  this  saying,"  not  the 
saying,  It  is  not  good  to  marry,  but  the  saying.  Whoso  putteth 
away  his  wife  committeth  adultery,  and  whoso  marrieth  any 
woman  put  away  committeth  adultery.  St.  Mark  and  St. 
Luke  alike  omit  all  reference  to  any  exception  to  the  rule. 
St.  Luke  prefacing  the  unexceptional  statement  with  the  words, 
**  It  is  easier  for  heaven  and  earth  to  pass  than  one  tittle  of  the 
law  to  fail,"  turns  back  to  another,  and  the  strongest  point  of 
all,  namely,  our  Lord's  statement  of  the  principle  of  marriage 
as  a  divine  institution,  which  St.  Matthew  records  in  full,  in 
the  same  chapter  of  his  Gospel.  The  question  was.  Can  a 
man  put  away  his  wife  for  any  cause  ?  and  our  Lord's  answer 
is  unequivocal.  ''  And  He  answered  and  said  unto  them.  Have 
ye  not  read,  that  He  which  made  them  at  the  beginning,  made 
them  male  and  female,  and  said,  for  this  cause  shall  a  man 
leave  father  and  mother,  and  shall  cleave  to  his  wife;  and  they 
twain  shall  be  one  flesh !  Wherefore  they  are  no  more  twain 
but  one  flesh.  What  therefore  God  hath  joined  together,  let 
not  man  put  asunder."  This  can  mean  but  one  thing,  that 
He  who  instituted  the  sacred  bond  in  the  beginning.  Who 
made  it  in  the  very  terms  of  its  institution  mystical,  reaffirms 
the  fundamental  principle  of  it,  monogamy  and  indissolubility, 
one  man  and  one  woman,  one  flesh;  "  what  therefore  God  has 
joined  together  let  not  man  put  asunder."  The  passages  must 
be  taken  together.  They  relate  and  refer,  all  of  them,  to  this 
restatement,  reaffirmation,  re-institution,  which  underlies  the 
natural,  the  Mosaic,  the  Christian  institution.  And  we  can 
only  so  avoid,  it  seems  to  me,  the  fault  and  failure  of  the  Phari- 
sees, who,  "  tempting  Him,"  here  as  elsewhere,  tried  to  ''  en- 
tangle Jesus  in  His  talk."  He  cannot  contradict  Himself. 
Somehow,  any  seeming  contradiction,  must  be  explicable.  And 
the  reconciling  words,  by  which  the  exception  which  would 
contravene  the  principle  of  marriage,  if  it  were  what  it  seems 


352      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

to  be,  may  be  so  understood  as  not  to  break  the  law  of  God ; — 
the  reconcihng  words  are  ''  what  therefore/'  because  they  are 
one  flesh,  ''  what  therefore  God  has  joined  together  let  not  man 
put  asunder." 

I  do  not  think  that  in  the  ordinary  discussion  of  the  scriptu- 
ral presentation  of  this  matter,  attention  enough  is  called  to 
St.  Paul's  witness.  We  turn  to  him  constantly  about  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Resurrection,  of  the  Holy  Eucharist  and  Con- 
firmation, etc.,  as  an  outside  and  independent  witness,  because 
he  has  assured  us  that  his  Gospel  was  not  from  man  nor  by 
man,  but  that  he  received  it  directly  and  immediately  from  our 
Lord  Himself.  It  may  of  course  be  possible  to  push  this  too 
far,  if  we  make  it  apply  to  every  dogmatic  utterance  of  the 
Apostle,  but  it  is  plainly  applicable  to  his  two  statements  about 
Christian  marriage.  "  And  unto  the  married  I  command,  yet 
not  I,  but  the  Lord,  Let  not  the  wife  depart  from  her  husband : 
But  and  if  she  depart,  let  her  remain  unmarried,  or  be  recon- 
ciled to  her  husband;  and  let  not  the  husband  put  away  his 
v/ife."  I  Cor.  7:  10,  11.  In  which  he  says  distinctly,  Not 
I,  but  the  Lord.  And  it  is  as  applicable  to  what  he  writes  to 
the  Roman  Christians  as  asserting  a  well  known  Christian  law. 
"  Know  ye  not,  brethren,  (for  I  speak  to  them  that  know  the 
law,)  how  that  the  law  hath  dominion  over  a  man  as  long  as 
he  liveth?  For  the  woman  which  hath  an  husband  is  bound 
by  the  law  to  her  husband  so  long  as  he  liveth ;  but  if  the  hus- 
band be  dead,  she  is  loosed  from  the  law  of  her  husband.  So 
then  if,  while  her  husband  liveth,  she  be  married  to  another 
man,  she  shall  be  called  an  adulteress:  but  if  her  husband  be 
dead,  she  is  free  from  the  law;  so  that  she  is  no  adulteress, 
though  she  be  married  to  another  man".  Rom.  7:  i,  2,  3. 
So  that  these  two  utterances,  both  unmistakable  in  their  mean- 
ing, are  not  Pauline  canons,  but  restatements  and  revelations 
to  St.  Paul  by  our  Lord  Himself,  which  had  passed  at  that 
time  into  a  well-known  law  of  the  Church,  to  which  the  Apostle 
could  appeal,  for  the  fact  that  only  death  dissolves  the  mar- 
riage bond. 


Divorce  and  Remarriage  353 

We  are  taught  to  refer  in  our  search  for  truth  to  "  Holy 
Scripture  and  ancient  authors."  We  are  told  also,  as  to  the 
teaching  of  our  Church,  that  the  fathers  of  it  in  America,  and 
the  revisers  and  compilers  of  our  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  and 
the  framers  of  our  canon  law,  had  no  intention  of  ''  departing 
from  the  Church  of  England  in  any  essential  point  of  doctrine, 
discipline  or  worship."  And  this  marriage  question  touches 
all  these  three.  It  cannot  be  said  that  there  is  consentient  doc- 
trine in  the  Church  of  England  when  men  like  Keble  and 
Bishop  Hamilton  and  Isaac  Williams  and  Dr.  Bright  are  on  the 
one  side,  and  on  the  other  side  Lightfoot  and  Bishop  Words- 
worth of  Lincoln  and  Bishop  Wordsworth  of  Salisbury  and 
Bishop  King  of  Lincoln.  So  that  one  must  recognize  the  hon- 
est and  somewhat  astonished  attitude  of  John  Keble,  scholar 
and  saint,  when  he  writes  "  It  is  notorious  that  very  many  hav- 
ing no  other  wish  than  to  live  and  die  dutiful  children  of  the 
Church  of  England,  believe,  nevertheless,  that  they  see  in  Holy 
Scripture  all  but  a  direct  contradiction  of  a  main  principle  of 
our  doctrine  and  discipline  of  marriage."  But  about  the  dis- 
cipline and  worship  of  the  Church  of  England,  her  canon  law, 
and  her  form  of  service,  there  is  no  room  for  doubt  or  ques- 
tion. Plainly  in  her  canon  law,  positively  in  her  long  inherit- 
ance of  traditional  legislation,  from  Aries,  from  the  time  of  the 
Norman  Conquest,  at  and  after  the  Reformation,  she  speaks 
still  with  no  uncertain  voice,  in  refusing  any  remarriage  after 
any  divorce.  And  the  Office  for  the  solemnization  of  matri- 
mony, hers  and  ours,  is  built  at  every  turn  and  step  upon  its 
indissolubility; — ''  so  long  as  ye  both  shall  live,"  "  until  death 
us  do  part,"  "  Whom  God  hath  joined  together  let  not  man 
put  asunder."  So  much  so,  that  to  use  that  office  for  the  re- 
marriage of  a  divorced  person,  or  to  use  it  with  any  contempla- 
tion of  a  separation  during  life  of  those  so  married,  would  be  a 
ludicrous,  if  it  were  not  a  blasphemous,  contradiction  in  terms. 
Not  least  of  all  the  reasons  which  make  for  the  value  of  the 
principle  that  divorce  does  not  carry  with  it  the  right  of  re- 
marriage, is  the  great  thought  of  the  duty  and  possibility  of 


354      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

reconciliation  after  repentance.  That  is  a  door  that  ought 
never  to  be  closed.  Even  the  gravest  offense,  expiated  by  bit- 
ter remorse,  ought  to  be  kept  within  the  reach  of  forgiveness 
and  restoration.  The  erring  husband  or  the  sinful  wife,  sepa- 
rated one  from  the  other,  ought  not  to  have  the  barrier  of 
another  wife  or  another  husband  taken,  between  them  and  the 
possibility  of  pardon  and  the  renewal  of  rights  and  privileges 
forfeited,  perhaps  in  some  moment  of  unresisted  temptation, 
for  which  years  of  misery  have  made  atonement. 

I  have  stated  the  case  in  favour  of  the  proposed  canon  forbid- 
ding any  minister  of  our  Church  to  solemnize  the  marriage  of 
either  party  to  a  divorce  during  the  lifetime  of  the  other  party, 
if  the  divorce  be  granted  for  any  cause  arising  after  marriage. 
I  am  not  called  upon  to  make  argument  or  plea  for  the  other 
side,  which  has  many  able  supporters,  but  I  am  bound  to  recog- 
nize that  there  is  another  side, — those  whom  Mr.  Keble  de- 
scribes as  wishing  ''  to  live  and  die  dutiful  children  of  the 
Church  of  England,  who  believe,  nevertheless,  that  they  see  in 
Holy  Scripture  all  but  a  direct  contradiction  of  the  principle 
of  her  doctrine  and  discipline  of  marriage,  namely,  that  mar- 
riage once  really  contracted  is  indissoluble  by  man."  They 
include  in  our  own  day  the  names  of  most  learned  and  holy 
men.  There  has  been  always  a  strong  array  of  students  of 
Holy  Scripture  and  canon  law,  holding  to  the  Divine  author- 
ity of  the  one  exception  which  allows  remarriage ;  and  the  tes- 
timony of  the  Eastern  Church  since  Constantine  has  been  as 
distinct  in  this  direction  and  in  wide  departures  from  it,  as  has 
been  that  of  the  Western  Church  in  the  other  direction.  How 
should  this  state  of  things  affect  our  canon  law?  Plainly,  it 
seems  to  me,  it  ought  to  hinder  us  from  presuming  to  declare 
the  illegality  of  this  one  marriage  by  affixing  to  it  any  ecclesias- 
tical penalty  other  than  (if  it  be  called  a  penalty)  the  refusal  to 
give  it  the  sanction  of  the  Church's  benediction.  The  form 
of  the  proposed  canon  purposely  avoids  declaring  such  a  mar- 
riage either  legal  or  illegal.  It  is  in  no  sense  a  canon  of  dis- 
cipline for  the  lay  people.     That  matter  may  be  dealt  with  in 


Divorce  and  Remarriage  355 

other  ways  and  must  be  dealt  with  elsewhere ;  either  by  such  a 
suggestion  as  was  made  in  the  amendment  proposed  to  the 
canon,  in  the  House  of  Bishops,  excepting  the  innocent  party 
to  a  divorce  suit,  asked  and  obtained  for  adultery,  from  the 
prohibition  to  admit  to  the  Sacraments  persons  remarried  after 
divorce ;  or,  there  may  be  some  wiser  and  better  way  to  accom- 
plish it.  The  canon  for  which  I  am  pleading  leaves  this  ques- 
tion untouched.  It  is  not,  and  does  not  pretend  to  be,  a  canon 
on  divorce  or  on  remarriage.  It  is  a  canon  on  marriage.  At  the 
same  time  I  am  free  to  confess  that  no  canonical  enactment 
would  be  complete,  and  no  canonical  action  would  fully  rep- 
resent the  actual  historic  attitude  of  the  Church  toward  this 
question,  which  does  not  somehow  recognize  the  claim  of  con- 
science and  of  scholarship,  about  that  most  difficult  of  all 
things  to  define,  the  innocent  party  in  a  divorce  suit  for  adul- 
tery. Say  what  you  will  about  the  danger  that  conscience  in 
this  case  means  often  the  self-will  of  passion ;  think  what  you 
will  about  the  clearness  of  Scriptural  principle;  it  is  true  that 
scholars  and  saints,  in  all  the  later  ages  and  in  the  two  great 
divisions  of  the  Church,  Eastern  and  Western,  have  been  di- 
vided and  uncertain  about  this  one  point.  And  something 
that  will  recognize  this,  something  that  will  at  least  exclude 
from  Christian  consideration  any  cause  for  tolerated  divorce 
but  the  one,  must  be  done.  I  am  only  concerned  to  say  that  the 
appeal  to  the  Church  on  the  ground  that  she  is  the  ecclesia 
doccns  to  decide  this  question,  to  teach  the  truth  positively, 
peremptorily  and  without  a  qualification,  is  asking  this  Amer- 
ican branch  of  the  Church  to  do  what  she  has  no  warrant  to  do, 
what  no  general  council  of  the  Church  has  finally  settled,  and 
what  no  uniform  consent  of  her  members  during  these  nine- 
teen centuries  has  been  able  to  accomplish.  Her  mission, 
therefore,  is  to  teach  what  she  can  most  surely  find  established 
by  the  strongest  warrant  of  authority;  and  if  I  can  read 
rightly  the  collected  teachings  of  the  centuries,  it  must  be  this : 
That  any  remarriage  after  divorce  is  so  far  doubtful  that  she 
cannot  give  it  the  sanction  of  allowing  her  clergy  to  solemnize 


356      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

it;  that  the  rightful  remarriage  of  the  man  whose  wife  is  an 
adulteress  is  so  far  possible  that  she  dare  not  refuse  to  admit 
this  person,  remarried,  to  the  Sacraments.  The  end  of  this 
question  is  not  yet.  Considering  the  cardinal  and  critical  con- 
sequence of  that  with  which  it  deals,  namely,  the  primeval  and 
fundamental  institution,  implied  in  creation,  instituted  in  the 
earliest  moment  of  man's  being,  and  certified  and  sanctified  by 
the  teaching  of  our  Lord, — considering  its  relation  to  all  that 
most  concerns  the  stability  of  the  family,  of  society,  of  the 
home,  of  the  state, — considering  the  chaos  of  confusion,  of  un- 
certainty, of  levity,  of  contempt  for  the  sacredness  of  this  holy 
estate,  of  divergence  in  civil  laws,  of  resort  to  fictions  and  false- 
hoods of  residence, — considering  the  influence  and  power  of  a 
declaration  in  her  canon  law  by  this  Church,  which  shall  con- 
form it  to  the  constantly  increasing  power  of  the  teaching  of 
her  Book  of  Common  Prayer, — it  must  be  recognized  as  a 
burning  question  in  theology,  in  morals,  in  discipline.  And  it 
is  imperative  that  all  should  make  such  study  of  the  facts  as 
they  may  be  able  to  make,  and  above  all,  to  pray  God  to  give 
them  wisdom  and  courage,  when  the  time  for  decision  shall 
come,  to  think  and  to  do  the  thing  which  is  right. 


Divorce  and  Remarriage 


Divorce  and  Remarriage 


BY 


Justice  D.  V.  BURNS,  LL.D. 

THE  question  of  divorce  is  one  of  the  most  perplexing  of 
all  the  social  questions.  This  perplexity,  in  the  minds 
of  many,  is  greatly  increased  when  we  come  to  deal  with  the 
question  of  the  remarriage  of  divorced  parties. 

Ours  is  a  Christian  Nation.  The  most  profound  reverence 
is,  as  a  rule,  paid  to  the  teachings  of  Holy  Writ  by  our  legisla- 
tors and  judges.  Great  respect  is  also  by  them  paid  to  the 
opinions  of  the  religious  element  of  society.  But  inasmuch 
as  we  have  with  us  no  union  of  Church  and  State  the  dogmas 
of  no  particular  sect  are  allowed  to  control  either  in  legisla- 
tive halls  or  in  judicial  forums. 

The  Founder  of  the  Christian  religion  never  assumed  to 
legislate  in  regard  to  purely  civil  affairs,  or  to  judicially  de- 
termine matters  which  properly  belong  to  the  State.  In  all 
such  matters  He  ever  carefully  held  Himself  aloof.  He  de- 
clared Himself  to  be  a  King;  that  He  came  to  set  up  a  King- 
dom, but  while  possibly  it  was  to  be  begun  on  this  earth,  it  was 
not  to  be  of  this  world.  Had  He  done  so,  but  few  would  now 
be  found  to  controvert  His  authority  or  challenge  the  wisdom 
of  His  utterances.  To  the  writer  His  every  word  is  Yea  and 
Amen.  But  to  rightly  understand  and  interpret  the  meaning 
of  what  is  said  upon  any  subject,  the  time  and  the  place  of 
utterance,  the  persons  addressed,  and  all  that  is  said  must  be 
taken  into  consideration.  During  His  ministry  the  Great 
Teacher  both  by  precept  and  example  taught  that  in  all  matters 
of  a  political  character  respect  and  obedience  should  be  paid 
to  established  authority.     (Matt.  22  :  21 ;  Luke  12  :  13-14.) 

Keeping  these  things  in  mind  let  us  proceed  to  examine  the 
teachings  of  Our  Lord  upon  this  important  and  perplexing 
question. 

At  the  very  outset  He  announced  that  no  one  could  even 

359 


360     Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

enter  into  His  Kingdom  or  become  a  subject  thereof,  until  he 
had  been  born  anew, — born  from  above.  After  having  so  an- 
nounced, He,  in  the  famous  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  which  has 
been  fittingly  called  His  "  Inaugural  Address,"  laid  down  cer- 
tain basic  principles  which  are  to  control  in  His  Kingdom. 
In  the  course  of  such  address  He  mentioned  among  other 
things  the  subject  of  divorce,  using  the  following  language: 
"  It  hath  been  said,  whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife,  let  him 
give  her  a  writing  of  divorcement ;  But  as  I  say  unto  you  that 
whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife  save  for  the  cause  of  forni- 
cation causeth  her  to  commit  adultery;  And  whosoever  shall 
marry  her  that  is  divorced  committeth  adultery."     (Matt.  5: 

31-32.) 

A  moment's  consideration  ought  to  convince  any  unbiased 
mind  that  the  Lord  was  not  then  speaking  about  matters  per- 
taining to  civil  legislation  or  civil  judicial  decision.  For  in 
the  same  discourse  He  said :  "  Whosoever  looketh  upon  a 
woman  to  lust  after  her  hath  committed  adultery  with  her  in 
his  heart."  "  Ye  have  heard  it  hath  been  said,  '  An  eye  for  an 
eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth : '  But  I  say  unto  you.  That  ye  re- 
sist not  evil ;  but  whosoever  shall  smite  thee  on  thy  right  cheek, 
turn  to  him  the  other  also."  "  If  any  man  sue  thee  at  the  law 
and  take  away  thy  coat,  let  him  have  thy  cloak  also."  "  Who- 
soever shall  compel  thee  to  go  a  mile,  go  with  him  twain,"  etc. 

The  Mosaic  law  upon  the  subject  which  is  supposed  to  have 
been  God-directed,  reads  as  follows : 

"  When  a  man  hath  taken  a  wife  and  married  her  and  it 
come  to  pass  that  she  find  no  favour  in  his  eyes,  because  he  hath 
found  some  uncleanness  in  her;  then  let  him  write  her  a  bill 
of  divorcement  and  give  it  in  her  hand  and  send  her  out  of  his 
house.  And  when  she  has  departed  out  of  his  house  she  may 
go  and  be  another  man's  wife,"  etc.  (Deut.  24 :  et  seq.) 

During  the  ministry  of  the  Christ  there  were  in  existence  in 
Palestine  two  great  rival  schools  of  theology.  The  one 
founded  by  Rabbi  Schammai  and  the  other  by  Rabbi  Hillel. 
These  differed  widely  in  their  interpretation  of  the  above  law 


Divorce  and  Remarriage  361 

The  question  was  one  of  fierce  and  bitter  debate  between  them. 
The  school  of  Hillel  taught  that  a  man  might  put  away  his 
wife  for  any  cause  which  seemed  good  to  him.  While  that 
of  Schammai  held  that  she  could  only  be  put  away  when  guilty 
of  an  act  of  unchastity.  A  delegation  from  the  Pharisaical 
party  sought  to  entangle  Jesus  by  having  Him  espouse  the 
cause  of  one  of  the  parties  and  thereby  incur  the  opposition  of 
the  other.  They  therefore  came  tempting  Him  saying :  ''  Is 
it  lawful  for  a  man  to  put  away  his  wife  for  any  cause?'' 
Discerning  their  motives,  He  answered,  ''  Have  ye  not  read 
that  He  who  made  them  at  the  beginning,  made  them  male  and 
female.  For  this  cause  a  man  shall  leave  father  and  mother, 
and  shall  cleave  to  his  wife ;  and  they  twain  shall  be  one  flesh. 
What  therefore  God  hath  joined  together  let  not  man  put 
asunder."  This  was  equivalent  to  His  saying.  You  have  asked 
my  opinion  as  to  how  a  mooted  question  shall  be  decided  in  the 
present  disorganized  and  corrupt  state  of  society,  which  I 
answer  by  calling  your  attention  back  to  the  indissoluble  rela- 
tionship which  bound  together  the  first  wedded  pair  as  they 
came  fresh  from  the  hands  of  their  Creator.  Male  and  female 
created  He  them  and  indissolubly,  so  far  as  the  act  of  man 
is  concerned,  joined  them  together.  I  am  not  to  destroy,  but 
to  fulfil. 

His  teaching  upon  this  particular  subject  was  so  startling 
and  perplexing  to  the  disciples  that  after  His  tempters  were 
gone  and  He  had  entered  a  house,  they  came  to  Him  for 
further  light,  saying :  "  If  the  case  of  man  be  so,  it  is  not  good 
to  marry  " ;  to  which  He  answered,  ''  All  men  cannot  receive 
this  saying,  save  they  to  whom  it  is  given;  there  be  eunuchs 
which  have  made  themselves  eunuchs  for  the  kingdom  of 
heaven's  sake.  He  that  is  able  to  receive  it,  let  him  receive 
it."  (Matt.  19:3-12;  Mark  10:2-12.)  He  was  not  dealing 
with  temporalities  as  earthly  law  makers  and  judges  are  com- 
pelled to  do.  He  was  laying  broad  and  deep  the  foundations 
of  a  Kingdom  which  is  to  be  eternal.  Those  who  are  fitted  to 
enter  it,  to  them  gives  He  power  to  receive  His  sayings  and 


362     Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

keep  them,  even  to  the  plucking  out  of  the  eye  which  offends. 
But  not  so  with  the  world. 

Divorce  among  the  ancient  Hebrews  was  quite  a  different 
matter  from  what  it  is  to-day  in  our  own  land  and  in  Great 
Britain.  The  husband  was  the  sole  judge,  and  he  alone  severed 
the  bonds.  Such  a  thing  as  a  wife  putting  away  her  husband 
for  any  cause  was  never  even  so  much  as  dreamed  of.  The 
only  protection  the  wife  had  was  that  the  law  of  Moses  re- 
quired that  the  husband  upon  divorcing  her  should  write  out 
his  reasons  for  so  doing,  and  after  having  the  same  attested 
by  witnesses,  give  it  into  her  possession.  This  enabled  her  to 
show  the  causes  of  separation  to  others,  which  often  carried 
upon  its  face  her  own  vindication.  If  a  wife  w^as  guilty  of 
adultery  a  husband  need  not  resort  to  such  a  proceeding  to  rid 
himself  of  her.  All  that  he  had  to  do  in  such  case  was  to  de- 
liver her  up  to  be  put  to  death ;  though,  if  he  was  so  minded,  he 
might  put  her  away  privately  as  Joseph  was  inclined  to  do  in 
the  case  of  Mary. 

But  among  the  English  speaking  people  the  rights  of  a 
wife  are  as  jealously  guarded,  and  in  practice  more  so,  than  are 
those  of  a  husband. 

In  the  contemplation  of  the  law  there  are  three  parties  to  every 
marriage  contract :  the  man,  the  woman  and  the  State.  Like- 
wise, the  same  three  parties  are  entitled  to  be  present  and 
heard  whenever  a  dissolution  is  asked.  There  is  no  putting 
away  of  one  by  the  other  at  pleasure;  nor  is  a  divorce  now 
decreed  unless  pursuant  to  some  express  provision  of  statutory 
law. 

In  England  prior  to  the  year  1858  the  subject  of  divorce 
was  cognizable  only  in  the  ecclesiastical  courts,  in  which  the 
canon  law,  i.  e.,  a  body  of  rules  and  ordinances  of  Roman 
Catholic  councils  and  popes,  qualified  by  statute,  prevailed. 
But  the  evils  arising  thereunder  proved  to  be  so  intolerable  that 
in  obedience  to  popular  demand  and  common  decency,  juris- 
diction of  the  subject  was  in  that  year  by  Act  of  Parliament 
taken  from  such  courts  and  vested  in  courts  of  law  in  which 
the  practice  is  open  to  public  scrutiny. 


Divorce  and  Remarriage  363 

In  none  of  the  States  of  the  American  Union  has  the  canon 
law  ever  prevailed.  In  some  of  the  States  divorces  were 
formerly  granted  only  by  legislative  enactment,  but  now  in  all 
of  the  States  and  Territories,  save  one  (South  Carolina),  di- 
vorces are  permitted  by  general  law  for  certain  specified  causes, 
as  adultery;  cruel  and  inhuman  treatment  of  one  party  by  the 
other;  wilful  desertion  for  a  specified  definite  length  of  time, 
usually  two  years;  conviction  of  a  felony  followed  by  im- 
prisonment in  a  State  prison ;  habitual  drunkenness,  and  failure 
on  the  part  of  an  able-bodied  husband  to  make  reasonable  pro- 
visions for  the  support  of  his  wife  and  family.  In  most  cases 
the  decree  of  divorce  is  absolute  as  to  both  parties;  while  in  a 
few,  only  the  innocent  party  is  permitted  to  remarry.  In  all 
the  States  having  statutes  upon  the  subject  both  husband  and 
wife  are,  except  as  to  the  cause  last  above  mentioned,  equal 
before  the  law. 

It  is  the  function  of  human  governments  to  deal  only  with 
present  physical  conditions.  They  cannot  punish  the  lustful 
glance,  nor  unrighteous  mental  anger  not  evidenced  by  physical 
violence,  nor  can  they  suppress  the  instinct  of  self  defence. 
If  compelled  to  govern  only  in  accordance  with  the  high  prin- 
ciples enunciated  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  they  could  not 
under  existing  conditions  maintain  their  existence  at  all.  They 
must  deal  with  men  as  they  find  them.  The  brutal  and  the 
vicious  must  be  restrained ;  the  rights  of  the  innocent  and  un- 
offending must  be  protected,  or  such  governments  must  utterly 
fail  of  their  purpose.  When  one  party  so  far  violates  the 
mutual  contract  as  to  render  cohabitation  intolerable,  the  other 
should  not  be  held  bound. 

Observation  and  experience  teach  that  many  couples  who 
have  been  wed  are  not  mated ;  that  they  have  always  remained 
twain  and  have  never  become  one  flesh.  Husbands  are  some- 
times bought  in  the  open  market  as  are  sheep  in  the  shambles. 
The  marriage  ceremony  is  sometimes  performed  at  the  muzzle 
of  the  revolver  of  an  irate  father  or  brother.  How  is  the 
human  judge  to  determine  "  whom  God  hath  joined  to- 
gether," except  from  the  manifestations  of  outward  conduct? 


364      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

The  ecclesiastical  judges  were  often  confronted  with  such  dif- 
ficult questions  as  these  and  often  solved  them  by  decreeing 
that  such  marriages  were  void  ab  initio.  But  not  so  with  our 
law  judges.  Every  marriage  not  prohibited  by  law  is  treated 
as  valid  until  dissolved  by  a  decree  of  a  competent  court. 
They  do  not  attempt  to  read  the  heart,  but  deal  only  with  out- 
ward conduct,  leaving  man  to  be  judged  by  his  Maker  as  to  his 
thoughts  and  unmanifested  purposes.  If  a  man  become  an 
habitual  drunkard  and  so  unfits  himself  for  procreation  or  as- 
sociation with  his  own  family;  or  by  his  brutal  conduct  con- 
stantly puts  the  life  of  her  whom  he  has  vowed  to  love,  cherish 
and  protect  in  jeopardy;  or  so  violates  the  laws  of  his  country 
that  he  is  imprisoned  for  life,  or  a  lesser  term ;  or  being  able- 
bodied,  refuses  to  make  any  provision  for  his  family,  ought  the 
State  in  such  cases  to  say  to  a  suffering,  innocent,  inoffensive 
and  helpless  wife,  "  The  laws  of  your  country  can  afford  you 
no  relief."  Would  He  who  ordained  and  upholds  human  gov- 
ernment for  the  protection  of  the  weak,  the  punishment  of  the 
vicious,  and  who  lifted  up  woman,  gave  her  an  individuality  of 
her  own,  crowned  her  with  nobility  and  placed  her  upon  equal- 
ity with  man,  desire  that  such  governments  should  so  utterly 
fail  in  their  purposes  as  to  leave  her  a  helpless  victim  to  man's 
inhumanity?  In  case  of  severance  of  the  family  union  by 
wilful  desertion  on  the  part  of  either  husband  or  wife,  the  great 
Apostle  to  the  Gentiles  expressed  himself  thus :  "  But  if  the 
unbelieving  depart,  let  him  depart.  A  brother  or  sister  is  not 
bound  in  such  cases."     (i  Cor.  7:  15.) 

Upon  the  question  of  the  remarriage  of  divorced  parties  the 
State  utters  no  voice.  Divorces  were  formerly  in  many  in- 
stances granted  a  mensa  et  thoro,  i.  e.,  from  bed  and  board 
only.  The  parties  being  thus  separated  were  married  and  yet 
not  married.  A  man  was  a  husband  and  at  the  same  time 
wifeless.  A  woman  was  a  wife  and  yet  was  without  a  hus- 
band. History  and  experience  have  shown  that  such  decrees 
are  not  conducive  to  public  morals,  such  is  the  affinity  of  the 
sexes.     Therefore  the  State  has  found  it  better,  in  most  in- 


Divorce  and  Remarriage  365 

stances  when  it  dissolves  the  bond  at  all,  to  dissolve  it  abso- 
lutely, thus  leaving  the  parties  in  the  same  condition  in  this 
respect,  as  if  neither  had  ever  been  married.  They  are  thus 
left  to  their  consciences  and  individual  judgments  as  to  their 
future  actions.  The  State  does  not  attempt  to  legislate  upon 
questions  affecting  only  private  conscience. 

That  much  unwise  legislation  has  been  had  and  much  loose- 
ness of  practise  indulged  in,  upon  this  highly  important  ques- 
tion, cannot  be  denied.  Scandals  have  arisen  therefrom  in 
many  instances  which  have  brought  disgrace  upon  us  as  a 
people.  No  one  is  more  conscious  of  this  evil  than  are  the 
thoughtful  members  of  the  legal  profession.  All  such  recog- 
nize that  the  family  is  the  foundation  on  which  rests  the  hope 
of  the  State;  and  that  no  nation  which  willfully  disobeys  any 
of  the  precepts  of  the  living  God  can  permanently  endure.  But 
human  laws  which  are  much  in  advance  of  public  sentiment 
cannot  be  enforced,  and  when  enacted  uselessly  encumber  the 
statute  books.  What  is  needed  is  the  creation  of  a  healthier 
public  sentiment  which  shall  control  in  all  matters  of  legisla- 
tion and  in  the  administration  of  justice. 

The  laws  upon  the  subject  of  marriage  and  divorce  are  not 
uniform  throughout  the  several  States.  If  they  were,  much 
scandal  would  be  avoided,  for  there  are  now  sections  where 
divorce  is  made  easy.  The  American  Bar  Association,  recog- 
nizing the  prevailing  evils,  has  taken  the  matter  in  hand  and 
appointed  a  committee  which  has  prepared  a  stringent  code  of 
laws  upon  the  subject  which  it  will  seek  to  have  enacted  by  the 
various  State  legislatures.  If  successful,  the  present  evils  will 
be  greatly  lessened.  But  the  true  solution  lies  in  having  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  so  amended  that  Congress 
alone  can  legislate  and  the  Federal  Courts  alone  adjudicate, 
upon  these  great  questions  so  vital  to  our  national  and  moral 
well-being 


Exposition  of  Christian  Science 


Exposition  of  Christian  Science 

BY 

The  Reverend  O.  P.  GIFFORD.  D.D. 

THE  purpose  of  this  paper  is  to  give  an  exposition  of  Chris- 
tian Science.  An  exposition  is  neither  an  attack  nor  a 
defence  but  is  an  attempt  to  state  the  subject  so  clearly  that  each 
may  attack  or  defend  for  himself.  Christian  Science  is  a  fact  to 
be  faced,  a  force  to  be  opposed  or  profited  by.  It  is  a  fact  and  a 
force  in  the  religious  and  the  medical  world,  dealing  with  the 
souls  and  bodies  of  men.  It  is  a  philosophy  dealing  with  God, 
man  and  the  universe.  It  is  an  art  healing  the  body,  calming 
the  mind,  quieting  the  soul.  It  claims  to  be  a  revelation.  "  A 
final  revelation  of  the  absolute  Principle  of  Scientific  Mind-heal- 
ing." As  a  revelation  Christian  Science  affirms  the  being  and 
unfolds  the  nature  of  God,  as  a  philosophy  it  formulates  this 
revelation  in  human  phrases,  weaving  the  threads  of  revelation 
into  a  web  of  complete  thought,  as  an  art  it  applies  the  truth 
revealed  and  thought  through  to  the  regulation  of  life. 

Christian  Science  accepts  the  Scriptures  as  the  Word  of  God, 
a  revelation  made  in  times  past  through  holy  men  by  the  Holy 
Ghost;  it  supplements  this  revelation  with  another  given 
through  Mrs.  Mary  Baker  Eddy,  bound  in  a  volume  known 
as  "  Science  and  Health  with  a  Key  to  the  Scriptures."  This 
volume  contains  the  revelation,  presents  the  philosophy,  and 
teaches  the  art. 

God. — "  God  is  Spirit,  Omnipotent,  Omniscient,  Infinite, 
Eternal,  Self-existent,  Life,  Truth,  Love,  Being,  All-in-All." 

Christian  Science  summarizes  its  creed  in  four  propositions : 
''  I.  God  is  All  in  all.  II.  God  is  good.  God  is  mind.  III.  God, 
Spirit,  being  all,  nothing  is  matter.  IV.  Life,  God,  omnipo- 
tent Good,  deny  death,  evil,  sin,  disease. — Disease,  sin,  evil, 
death,  deny  Good,  omnipotent  God,  Life.  These  may  be  read 
forward  or  backward,  they  are  self-evident  propositions." 

369 


370      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

God  is  not  a  person.  Personality  implies  limitation,  there 
may  be  many  persons  in  one  room,  there  is  but  one  God,  there- 
fore He  cannot  be  a  person.  If  it  be  true  that  personality  im- 
plies limitation,  and  it  be  granted  that  God  is  unlimited  then  it 
follows  that  He  is  not  a  person.  He  may  transcend  personality 
as  a  person  transcends  a  thing;  God  cannot  be  less  than  man, 
He  may  be,  and  is,  more  than  man.  In  man  personality  is 
limited,  if  we  know  all  that  is  to  be  known  of  personality  by 
knowing  man,  then  it  follows  that  God  is  not  a  person.  Chris- 
tian Science  claims  to  be  a  revelation,  if  it  is  what  it  claims  to 
be,  we  must  accept  its  teaching  concerning  God.  Though  not  a 
person  He  wills,  loves,  plans,  and  these  in  our  thought  are  the 
essence  of  personality. 

When  it  is  said  that  "  Matter  is  nothing,  Nothing  is 
matter,  '*  the  revelation  is  given  from  God's  point  of  view. 
To  man  Matter  is  much,  it  limits  us  on  every  side,  to  God  it 
has  no  existence,  hence  it  follows  that  all  belonging  to  Matter, 
inhering  in  Matter  is  also  non-existent.  Physical  Science 
is  teaching  (speculatively)  that  "  Matter  is  a  mode  of  mo- 
tion ".  The  atom  has  never  been  found  outside  the  mind  of 
man,  it  is  a  subject  of  thought,  it  lies  below  the  horizon  of 
sense.  Christian  Science  teaches  that  Matter  has  no  existence 
outside  the  human  mind;  as  the  human  breath  turns  to  white 
mist  on  a  frosty  morning  and  then  disappears,  so  matter  is  but 
the  breath  of  mortal  mind,  has  no  reality  to  God.  If  that  be 
true  then  it  follows  that  disease  in  Matter  has  no  real  exist- 
ence, or  existence  to  God,  and  what  is  unreal  to  God  is  in  its 
essence  unreal,  for  He  is  the  only  Reality. 

Man. — Man  is  God's  Idea,  expression,  reflection,  image, 
likeness.  He  is  as  eternal  as  God  is.  So  long  as  God  thought 
Man  was,  for  Man  is  God's  thought.  God  could  not  be  and 
not  think,  His  thoughts  are  as  real  as  He  is,  as  eternal,  they  are 
the  expression  of  His  essence,  the  image  of  His  being.  A  Man 
standing  before  a  mirror  sees  his  own  image,  it  has  no  being 
except  as  he  is,  it  moves  toward  or  away  from  him  as  he 
moves.      If   it   could   mirror   his   mind    it   would   think   his 


Exposition  of  Christian  Science  371 

thoughts.  If  the  man  and  the  mirror  and  the  light  were  eternal, 
and  the  three  were  externally  related  the  image  would  be 
as  eternal.  God  is  eternal  Being,  Man  is  His  eternal  image. 
God  is  conscious  only  of  Himself  and  His  Image.  He  is.  He  is 
Light,  He  is  His  own  mirror,  and  Man  is  His  eternal  reflec- 
tion. Before  Man  knew  time,  before  time  was,  Man  reflected 
God,  thought  His  thoughts,  lived  His  life,  had  only  God-con- 
sciousness. He  came  to  self-consciousness,  how  or  why  we 
do  not  know.  The  writer  of  the  book  of  Genesis  tells  the  fact 
in  parable  form.  Man  asserted  his  own  will,  separated  himself 
from  God  in  thought  and  purpose.  Lost  God-consciousness. 
Thought  of  himself  as  an  independent  being,  became  self- 
centered.  From  being  a  planet  with  God  as  the  centre,  he  be- 
came (in  his  own  thought)  a  sun  and  evolved  a  universe  to 
circle  about  himself.  This  dream,  so  real  to  him,  has  no  reality 
to  God.  God  sees  only  His  own  image  and  likeness,  man  still 
revolves  about  God,  this  man-made  universe  has  no  reality  to 
God.  He  sees  only  truth,  and  this  human  attitude  of  mind  is 
false.  He  sees  only  the  real,  and  man's  dream  is  unreal.  Man 
is  like  one  in  a  dream,  when  he  awakes  in  God's  likeness  he 
will  be  satisfied,  but  he  is  in  God's  likeness  all  the  time,  only 
not  awake  to  it,  hence  he  is  dissatisfied.  He  is  hewing  out 
broken  cisterns  but  the  water  of  Life  still  flows  under  the 
throne.  God  sees  only  the  river,  to  Him  the  cisterns  have  no 
existence.  The  vagaries  of  the  insane  are  unreal  to  the  sane, 
sin  is  insanity,  a  mental  delusion,  real  to  the  man  who  has 
sinned  but  unreal  to  the  sinless  God. 

Having  asserted  himself,  Man  makes  a  new  world  to  fit  his 
new  mental  state.  The  human  body  is  real  to  Man,  but  unreal 
to  God.  It  is  a  burden  and  a  barrier  to  and  between  men. 
We  know  only  so  many  of  each  other's  thoughts  as  each  sees 
fit  to  express;  God  knows  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the 
heart,  if  the  body  were  as  real  to  Him  as  it  is  to  us  it  would  be 
a  veil  between  Him  and  the  soul  of  man,  but  it  has  no  place  in 
God's  world.     Created  light  casts  shadows  when   it   strikes 


372      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

bodies,  the  uncreated  God-Light  casts  no  shadows,  shines 
through  matter  directly,  because  to  God  there  is  no  matter, 
''  Matter  is  nothing." 

Buildings,  books,  machines,  pictures,  all  that  make  what 
we  call  civilization,  are  the  expression  of  human  thought. 
Matter  is  our  alphabet,  civilization  is  our  literature.  None  of 
these  things  were  before  man,  none  of  them  will  last  long  after 
man  passes  from  the  stage  of  action.  Men  think,  and  thoughts 
embodied  in  matter  is  civilization,  laws,  institutions,  govern- 
ments are  but  human  thoughts,  they  come  and  go  like  sea- 
born clouds.  But  Matter  itself,  the  alphabet,  the  language  is 
also  a  product  of  human  thought.  Thought  wedded  to  lan- 
guage makes  literature,  but  thought  and  language  are  from 
the  mind  of  man,  language  is  the  product  of  thought.  Civili- 
zation is  thought  wedded  to  matter,  but  matter  is  also  the 
product  of  human  thought.  There  w^as  no  matter  before  man 
thought  it,  there  will  be  no  matter  when  man  ceases  to  think  it, 
it  has  no  reality  to  God.  As  matter  is  real  God  is  unreal,  as 
God  becomes  real,  matter  becomes  unreal.  Christ  so  mastered 
matter  that  at  the  end  it  had  no  reality  to  him.  '*  He  emptied 
Himself,  made  Himself  of  no  reputation,  took  upon  Himself 
the  form  of  a  servant,"  then  asserted  Himself,  and  mastered 
His  man-made  environment,  putting  sin  to  death  in  the  flesh, 
to  teach  us  the  reality  of  God  and  the  unreality  of  matter.  To 
God  matter  is  as  unreal  as  it  became  to  Christ  when  He  dis- 
appeared from  man  in  earth-born  clouds.  Christian  Science 
teaches  that  God  is  the  only  reality,  Man  as  God's  Idea  shares 
that  reality,  but  matter  and  all  it  means  to  us,  is  unreal  to 
God,  for  He  is  Spirit,  and  only  the  Spiritual  is  the  real. 

Sin. — Sin  is  unreal  to  God.  It  is  a  mode  of  human 
thought.  It  is  a  shadow  cast  by  man  when  he  stands  with  his 
back  to  God.  It  disappears  when  he  changes  his  mind,  or  re- 
pents. Sin  is  not  a  reality,  it  is  simply  a  mood  of  mind,  a 
form  of  thought,  a  set  of  will,  it  disappears  when  a  man  faces 
God  and  becomes,  consciously,  God's  Idea  again. 

Sickness. — There  is  no  sickness,  to  God.     Thoughts  away 


Exposition  of  Christian  Science  373 

from  God  are  unreal  thoughts,  unrecognized  thoughts,  as  un- 
real and  unrecognized  as  Aguinaldo's  government,  we  deal 
with  the  men  who  are  opposed  to  us,  but  not  with  the  govern- 
ment they  assume  exists.  Sickness  is  simply  a  human  thought, 
real  to  the  man  who  thinks  it,  expressed  in  matter  of  man's 
making,  but  to  the  realm  in  which  God  lives  it  has  no  exist- 
ence. When  man  changes  his  mind,  the  expression  of  the 
thought  changes  and  the  sickness  disappears. 

Death. — "  There  is  no  Death,  what  seems  so  is  transi- 
tion ",  sings  our  Longfellow,  the  song  of  the  poet  is  the  creed 
of  the  Christian  Scientist.  Death  is  a  form  of  thought,  at 
most  it  is  "  shuffling  off  this  mortal  coil  "  which  we  made 
ourselves  and  are  trapped  in,  it  is  the  rolling  away  of  clouds 
which  have  risen  from  the  sea  of  human  thought  and  letting 
the  light  of  Life  shine  undimmed. 

Satan. — Satan  has  no  being  outside  the  human  mind,  he 
is  the  child  of  fear.  Once  grant  that  God  is  All,  only  God 
and  His  Idea  are  real,  and  we  can  see  that  Satan,  not  being  a 
part  of  God's  Idea  has  no  real  being.  He  is  the  pulse  beat  of 
the  heart  throb  of  human  fear,  when  the  throb  stops  the  pulse 
beat  stills.  The  triumph  of  monotheism  is  at  last  complete. 
The  diverse  deities  of  the  unscientific  ages  have  been  forced  to 
abdicate.  Last  to  yield  has  been  the  notion  of  the  gods  of  good 
and  evil  contending  with  doubtful  issue  for  the  mastery.  The 
modern  theory  of  the  universe,  as  originating  in  the  self-reve- 
lation of  God,  necessarily  removes  the  premises  from  which 
such  interpretations  spring.  As  the  idea  of  God  as  universal 
being  excludes  the  earlier  conception  of  dualism  in  mind  and 
matter,  so  the  idea  of  God  as  universal  spirit  excludes  the 
earlier  conception  of  the  dualism  of  God  and  evil  spirits. 

The  malignant  form  of  an  arch-spirit  of  evil,  who  has  cast 
his  baleful  shadow  over  the  human  mind  from  the  beginning, 
and  who  until  quite  recently,  has  been  an  awful  terror,  freez- 
ing the  pulses  and  paralyzing  the  will  of  mankind,  is  forced 
to  yield  his  sceptre  and  betake  himself  to  the  congenial  regions 
of  chaos  and  old  night.     The  spirit  of  God,  it  is  at  last  seen. 


374      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

has  not  to  strive  with  a  spirit  of  evil  so  universal,  so  powerful, 
as  always  to  hinder  and  often  to  thwart  the  divine  effort  for 
human  welfare;  but  instead  has  but  the  slowness  of  moral 
growth  in  humanity,  and  the  wilfulness  of  souls  ignorant  of 
their  true  good  with  which  to  contend.  The  new  conception 
of  God  as  Himself  the  universe  is  a  proclamation  of  emanci- 
pation from  the  powers  of  Satan ;  it  is  a  declaration  that  God 
is  always  man's  friend,  it  is  also  a  notice  that  for  his  own  sin- 
fulness man  is  himself  responsible.     The  Devil  is  no  more." 

Matter  is  not.  Sin  is  not,  Sickness  is  not,  Death  is  not,  Satan 
is  not,  to  God.  God  is  conscious  only  of  Himself  and  His 
Idea  Man.    Whatever  is  not  to  God  is  not  in  any  real  sense. 

The  Art. — The  art  of  healing  is  very  simple.  Accept  the 
fundamental  proposition  that  God  and  His  Idea  are  the  uni- 
verse, that  only  Spirit  is  real,  accepting  this  you  are  bound  to 
deny  the  reality  of  matter,  of  sin,  sickness,  death,  Satan.  Be- 
fore your  affirmation  the  denial  will  flee  away.  The  way  to 
cure  disease  is  not  to  add  to  the  burden  of  matter  by  more 
drugs,  the  soul  is  already  overburdened  with  false  belief,  but 
to  add  to  the  spiritual  force  of  the  soul.  Bring  your  positive 
affirmations  and  brush  away  the  negations  as  the  sun  destroys 
the  clouds.  The  soul  of  the  patient  sits  in  spiritual  darkness, 
standing  in  the  outer  hall  press  the  button,  relate  the  room  to 
the  dynamo  through  the  wires  and  lamps  that  are  unknown  to 
the  sufferer,  but  are  known  to  you.  Darkness  is  the  absence  of 
light,  a  negative,  it  is  not  something,  but  the  lack  of  some- 
thing, the  Christian  Scientist  carries  light  by  realizing  light. 
Be  positive,  affirmative,  deny  the  reality  of  matter,  sin,  sick- 
ness, death,  affirm  God,  Truth,  Life,  Spirit. 

All  revelations  before  this  present  revelation  have  been  an- 
thropomorphic. God  has  been  conceived  of  in  human  terms, 
the  molten  metal  of  Divine  Truth  has  been  run  into  moulds  of 
human  thought,  the  white  radiance  of  eternity  has  been  stained 
by  the  many-coloured  glass  of  human  thought;  God  has  come 
to  us  through  the  court  room  as  a  Judge,  through  the  palace 
as  a  King,  through  the  army  as  a  General,  through  the  family 


Exposition  of  Christian  Science  375 

as  a  Father.  Christian  Science  is  Theomorphic,  it  does  not  set 
moulds  to  fashion  Truth,  but  lets  it  flow  on,  a  broad  deep 
stream  of  living  fire,  it  does  not  imprison  the  race  in  a  temple 
of  human  making,  domed  with  human  thought,  but  leads  man 
out  under  God's  blue  dome  and  bids  him  lift  his  face  and  be 
God-conquered.  It  does  not  lead  God  to  man  by  the  way  of 
the  court  room,  the  palace,  the  army  and  the  family,  but  leads 
man  to  God  directly ;  not  in  mountain  nor  temple  must  God  be 
worshipped  and  served.  ''  God  is  Spirit,  and  they  that  wor- 
ship Him,  must  worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth."  Ac- 
cepting God  thus.  Christian  Science  accepts  the  universe  and 
man  as  He  accepts  them.  Man  is  God's  Idea,  and  the  visible 
universe  is  man's  thought.  Only  so  far  as  Man  thinks  God 
does  he  think  reality,  all  other  thoughts  are  unreal. 

"  The  baseless   fabric   of  this   vision, 
The  cloud-capp'd  towers,  the  gorgeous  palaces, 
The  solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself, 
Yea,  all  which  it  inherit,  shall  dissolve, 
And,  like  this  insubstantial  pageant  faded, 
Leave  not  a  rack  behind." 

The  key  to  Christian  Science  is  found  in  the  assertion. 
"  God  is  all,"  ''  God  and  His  Idea,  Man."  God  is  conscious 
only  of  Himself  and  His  Idea.  Man  lives  as  God  would  have 
him  only  when  his  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God,  and  self-con- 
sciousness is  lost  in  God-consciousness. 


Christian    Science 


Christian  Science 

BY 

EDWARD  A.  KIMBALL,  C.S.D. 

CHRISTIAN  Science  is  to-day  engaging  the  attention  of 
intelligent  people  on  two  hemispheres  because  it  is  heal- 
ing the  sick,  causing  the  blind  to  see,  reclaiming  drunkards, 
saving  sinners  and  abolishing  innumerable  ills  that  have  har- 
assed and  prostrated  a  suffering  race. 

Again  it  is  because  a  million  people  who  have  been  thus  bene- 
fited are  insistently  bearing  witness  thereof  to  the  world  and 
impressing  upon  men  the  tangible  fact  that  some  supreme  in- 
fluence is  working  out  a  transforming  deliverance  for  the  peo- 
ple of  this  generation  and  meeting  nearly  every  conceivable 
human  need.  Lastly  it  is  because  the  person  who,  earnestly 
and  in  good  faith,  studies  this  Science  learns  that  he  can  gain 
a  demonstrable  knowledge  thereof,  whereby  he  can  prove  its 
verity.  He  finds  that  it  reveals  the  real  nature  of  God  and  man 
and  the  Science  of  Being.  For  him,  it  effaces  mystery  and 
dispels  the  illusion  that  the  things  of  God  are  supernatural 
and  miraculous.  It  places  him  on  the  solid  basis  of  the  Science 
of  Life,  on  which  all  right  reasoning  must  rest  and  wherein 
logic  and  exact  knowledge  govern,  instead  of  theory,  super- 
stition and  mysticism. 

All  of  this  has  been  made  possible  because  Rev.  Mary 
Baker  Eddy  wrote  the  text-book  of  Christian  Science — ■ 
"  Science  and  Health  With  Key  to  the  Scriptures  " — and  has 
taught  others  the  principle  of  this  science ;  the  rules  for  demon- 
strating it  and  the  entire  modus  operandi  of  its  practical  appli- 
cation. This  book  of  600  pages  contains  an  exhaustive  and 
ample  exposition  of  the  entire  subject,  by  the  only  one  fully 
qualified  to  do  it.  It  would  be  a  work  of  supererogation  for 
any  other  person  to  undertake  to  answer  fully  the  question, 
"What  is  Christian  Science?"     Every  attempt  to  do  so  has 

379 


380      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

exposed  flagrant  plagiarism  or  a  diluted  substitution  of  faulty 
statements. 

The  writer  of  these  few  pages  needs  not  to  apologize  for  re- 
fraining from  any  such  attempt  here.  He  who  most  wisely 
meets  the  question,  "  What  is  Christian  Science?  "  will  direct 
the  inquirer  to  that  book.  There  is  no  better,  easier  or  safer 
way  in  which  any  one  may  gain  a  knowledge  of  the  subject. 

This  book,  "  Science  and  Health,"  which  is  rapidly  ap- 
proaching its  200th  edition,  contains  the  declaration  that  it  is 
not  a  presentation  of  theory  or  philosophical  speculation  on 
the  part  of  Mrs.  Eddy,  but  that  it  is  definite  knowledge,  or 
demonstrable  science,  and  that  it  comes  by  way  of  discovery 
or  revelation.  This  fact  that  it  is  demonstrable  science  greatly 
simplifies  the  progress  of  the  investigator,  because  he  can  prove 
that  the  principle  is  absolutely  true  and  he  does  not  need  to 
believe  what  he  cannot  understand  and  verify. 

Jesus  said,  "  Ye  shall  know  the  Truth  and  the  Truth  shall 
make  you  free." 

All  truth  is  divine  and  the  impartation  of  Truth  to  man  is 
called  inspiration,  revelation,  perception,  discernment  or  dis- 
covery. It  matters  not  what  name  be  given  to  this  but  it  is 
essential  to  know  that  it  means  that  some  individual  man  or 
woman  has  discovered,  or  as  Paul  says,  spiritually  discerned 
the  Truth  which  must  always  reach  humanity  through  some 
one  who,  voluntarily  or  involuntarily,  has  been  undergoing  a 
preparation  for  such  revelation  or  discovery. 

The  announcement  of  Christian  Science  as  the  Truth,  or 
God's  word  to  this  age,  is  likewise  the  announcement  that 
Mrs.  Eddy  is  the  one  through  whom  this  science  has  been 
made  known. 

The  special  fitness  of  this  illustrious  woman  for  this  service 
is  traced  from  her  childhood,  indeed  Rev.  Dr.  Hines  said  of 
her,  "  This  child  was  consecrated  before  she  was  born." 

Her  devout  parents  were  of  deep  religious  culture,  and  a 
saintly  mother,  little  knowing  the  vast  destiny  of  her  child, 


Christian  Science  38 1 

trained  its  moral  tendencies  heavenward  and  nourished  her  in 
the  atmosphere  of  piety  and  uncompromising  rectitude.  While 
yet  a  young  girl  she  became  a  student  of  philosophy,  moral 
science,  theology  and  metaphysics.  In  later  years  she  took 
a  thorough  course  of  study  in  the  Homeopathic  school  of  med- 
ical theory  and  practice.  In  consequence  of  her  experience  as 
a  practitioner  and  her  researches  in  the  realm  of  mental  causa- 
tion and  phenomena,  she  detected  the  defects  of  medical  the- 
ories and  abandoned  the  entire  system  as  being  unscientific, 
and  sought  diligently  to  know  the  Science  of  Life  which  is  also 
the  Science  of  Healing. 

Her  life  has  been  one  of  unselfish  devotion  to  the  welfare 
of  humanity  and  marked  by  numberless  instances  of  benevo- 
lence and  philanthropy.  The  income  from  the  enormous  sale 
of  her  books  finds  outlet  in  the  way  of  donations  which  her 
secretary  says  have  averaged  $88,000  annually  for  the  last 
four  years. 

For  thirty  years  Mrs.  Eddy  has  been  under  the  public  gaze 
as  Author,  Minister,  Editor,  College  President  and  Leader  of 
the  Christian  Science  denomination,  and  those  who  have 
known  her  best  during  all  these  years  testify  as  to  her  unselfish 
love  for  friend  or  enemy;  the  manifest  purity  of  motive  and 
judgment;  her  consummate  honesty  and  ceaseless  endeavour  to 
do  God's  will. 

Entrusted  with  a  message  of  deepest  import  to  the  world, 
she  has  been  faithful  to  her  trust  and  to-day  nearly  a  million 
people  attest  the  results  of  her  ministry  in  the  healing  of  dis- 
ease and  kindred  evils.  As  the  century  closes,  this  pioneer  in 
the  age  of  Christian  Science  stands  conspicuously  upon  the 
scene  of  the  moral,  intellectual  and  religious  transformation 
which  is  prevalent,  and  is  inseparably  connected  with  the 
Christian  Science  cause  and  its  progress. 

Having  taken  every  advancing  footstep,  she  is  by  the  in- 
evitable logic  of  events  the  Leader  of  a  religious  denomina- 
tion whose  growth  has  been  more  rapid  than  any  other  known 


382      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

to  history  and  whose  works  of  healing  and  deliverance  are  with- 
out a  parallel  since  the  time  of  Christ  and  primitive  Chris- 
tianity. 

As  a  noble,  patriotic  woman;  as  constant  friend  and  bene- 
factress; as  wise  teacher  and  leader,  she  is  now  the  object  of 
the  esteem,  gratitude  and  affection  of  millions.  Could  the 
imagination  depict  a  more  appropriate  state  of  consciousness 
through  which  the  Truth,  long  prayed  for,  should  reach  hu- 
manity. 

An  erroneous  assumption  that  Christian  Scientists  are  in- 
clined to  "  deify  "  Mrs.  Eddy  is  met  by  her  own  statements. 

"  Whosoever  looks  to  me  personally  for  his  health  or  holiness 
mistakes.  He  that  by  reason  of  human  love  or  hatred  or  any 
other  cause  clings  to  my  material  personality,  greatly  errs,  stops 
his  own  progress,  and  loses  the  path  to  health,  happiness  and 
heaven.  The  Scriptures  and  Christian  Science  reveal  the  Way, 
and  personal  revelators  will  take  their  proper  place  in  history 
but  will  not  be  deified." 

"To-day  though  rejoicing  in  some  progress,  she  (I)  finds 
herself  a  willing  disciple  at  the  heavenly  gate  waiting  for  the 
Mind  of  Christ." 

Revealed  Truth  always  "  turns  and  overturns."  It  revolu- 
tionizes thought;  supplants  error;  reforms  and  regenerates. 

Christian  Science  is  overturning  many  of  the  chaotic  and  gro- 
tesque misconceptions  of  Deity  and  is  destined  to  supplant  the 
fatal  human  philosophy  of  life  which  always  ultimates  in 
death. 

In  revealing  the  Science  of  Being  it  shows  that  the  all-in- 
clusive God,  which  is  Omniscience  or  infinite  Mind,  includes 
no  evil,  but  is  absolute  Good.  It  shows  that  the  individuality 
of  God  as  infinite  Spirit  transcends  immeasurably  the  human 
concept  of  Him  as  being  but  little  higher  than  a  corporeal  per- 
sonality or  a  God  with  personal  attributes. 

Mrs.  Eddy  in  her  published  works  writes : 

"  As  the  words  person  and  personal  are  commonly  and  igno- 
rantly  employed,  they  often  lead,  when  applied  to  Deity,  to  con- 


Christian  Science  383 

fused  and  erroneous  conceptions  of  divinity  and  its  distinction 
from  humanity.  If  the  term  personality,  as  appHed  to  God, 
means  infinite  personality,  then  God  is  personal  Being — in  this 
sense,  but  not  in  the  lower  sense." 

"  The  human  person  is  finite :  and  therefore  I  prefer  to  retain 
the  proper  sense  of  Deity  by  using  the  phrase,  an  '*  individual 
God,"  rather  than  a  "  personal  God." 

The  proneness  of  critics  to  conclude  that  this  reduces  the 
sense  of  God  to  an  abstraction  is  corrected  by  many  statements 
by  her  like  the  following : 

"  Father  is  the  name  for  Spirit,  God  which  indicates  His  ten- 
der relationship  to  His  Spiritual  creation." 

"  The  Fatherliness  of  God  makes  His  sovereignty  glorious." 

"  Now  this  selfsame  God  is  our  Helper.  He  pities  us;  He 
has  mercy  upon  us  and  guides  every  event  of  our  careers.  He 
is  near  to  them  who  adore  Him. 

"  The  desire  which  goes  forth  hungering  after  righteousness 
is  blessed  of  our  Father  and  does  not  return  unto  us  void." 

The  study  and  demonstration  of  this  science  exalts  thought 
to  the  discernment  of  God  as  Spirit  and  as  being  good  in  every 
phase  of  His  Being  and  in  every  manifestation  of  it.  This 
realization  of  God  which  excludes  evil  from  the  divine  nature 
and  phenomena  reveals  conversely  the  actual  nature  of  evil. 
Deity  is  either  mindless  or  Mind.  The  infinite  divine  Mind 
could  not  include  anything  that  is  not  divine  or  divinely  true 
and  good,  and  supremely  real  and  permanent. 

Evil  is  the  paraphernalia  of  what  the  Bible  calls  the  "  carnal 
mind  "  and  what  Mrs.  Eddy  has  designated  in  a  somewhat 
more  ample  way  as  mortal  mind,  because  it  includes  the  range 
and  activity  of  an  evil  sense  of  being,  which  means  sin,  disease 
and  death.  The  Bible  says,  "  To  be  carnally  minded  is  death, 
but  to  be  spiritually  minded  is  life  and  peace."  This  neces- 
sarily means  that  to  be  carnally  minded  is  sickness  and  to  be 
spiritually  minded  is  health.  Christian  Science  confirms  this 
with  scientific  accuracy  and  shows  that  evil  instead  of  being  of 
divine  ordination  is  contrary  thereto  and  is  abnormal,  un- 


384      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

lawful,  unrighteous  and  unnecessary, — an  unreal,  perverted, 
misconceived  sense  of  life  and  truth  and  of  the  actual  facts  of 
Being. 

The  philosophy,  science  and  theology  of  Christian  Science 
are  based  on  the  spiritual  foundation  that  Deity,  which  English 
speaking  people  call  God,  is  infinite;  that  God  is  the  infinity 
of  Truth,  Spirit,  Mind,  Wisdom,  Intelligence,  Life,  Good, 
Love,  Harmony;  that  the  power,  action  and  govern- 
ment of  the  supreme,  divine  individuality  is  good  and  that  the 
law  of  God  to  man  is  the  law  of  life,  holiness  and  harmony. 
The  entire  Christian  Science  structure  is  absolutely  consistent 
with  this  divine  premise  and  all  of  its  ideas  converge  at  the 
Allness  of  God. 

Christian  Science  leads  its  student  to  an  accurate  discern- 
ment of  the  fact  that  the  Bible  contains  the  word  or  law  of 
God  to  man. 

It  declares  without  reserve  the  Messiahship  of  the  Divine 
Christ  and  emphasizes  the  statement  that  Christ  is  the  only  pos- 
sible way  of  salvation  for  all  men  and  all  time. 

It  shows  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  perfect  representative  of 
perfect  God,  manifesting  by  His  works  or  demonstrations  the 
divine  nature ;  the  spiritual  or  natural  law  and  the  perfectibility 
of  man  when  governed  by  the  law  of  Spirit  rather  than  the 
law  of  evil. 

As  the  representative  of  God,  Jesus'  works  are  the  best  in- 
terpreters of  His  mission.  He  came,  it  is  said,  ''  to  do  the  will 
of  God;"  ''to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was  lost"  and 
''  to  destroy  the  works  of  the  devil."  He  knew  more  about 
God  and  man;  more  about  law  and  government,  the  science 
of  Life  and  the  cause  and  cure  of  disease,  than  all  of  the  peo- 
ple that  ever  lived.  He  knew  the  best  possible  way  in  which  to 
heal  the  sick  and  in  doing  so,  fulfilled  the  law. 

The  science  of  that  healing  and  the  fact  that  it  was  scientific 
Instead  of  supernatural  and  mysterious  is  disclosed  with  much 
amplification  by  Mrs.  Eddy  in  "  Science  and  Health." 

Some  of  the  conspicuous  deductions  of  Christian  Science  are 


Christian  Science  385 

that  sin  is  based  upon  an  utterly  erroneous  and  unreal  sense 
and  must  be  wholly  destroyed;  that  all  diseases  are  curable, 
and  that  Christian  salvation  includes  salvation  from  sickness 
as  well  as  sin  and  promises  the  restoration  to  man  of  his  lost 
dominion  over  evil. 

Christian  Science  unlocks  the  so-called  mystery  of  evil  and 
shows  that  sin  and  disease  are  primarily  of  mental  rather  than 
physical  origin  and  that  the  only  possible  way  whereby  both 
may  be  dominated  is  through  the  spiritual  power  of  the  divine 
Mind  which  was  also  in  Christ.  It  shows  the  havoc  caused  by 
evil  thought,  acting  through  the  individual  and  collectively, 
and  it  shows  particularly  that  evil  thought  externalizes  itself  in 
human  experience  as  calamity  and  disease.  As  a  mental 
remedy  for  mental  causation  it  heals  all  diseases  where  drugs 
fail,  because  it  is  impossible  for  mindless  matter  to  cope  with 
an  ignorant  or  sinful  condition  of  consciousness.  Hence  the 
terms  '*  metaphysical  healing  "  and  "  Christian  Science  heal- 
ing," which  has  been  more  successful  than  any  other  remedial 
agency  known  to  man. 

Although  reluctant  to  attempt  a  fragmentary  and  incomplete 
exposition  of  the  technicalities  of  this  science,  I  can  with  pro- 
priety and  gladness  presume  to  speak  of  the  vast  benefits  which 
are  accruing  to  mankind  because  of  its  discovery  and  of  its 
demonstrable  availability.  Having  been  rescued  as  it  were 
from  the  grave  by  Christian  Science  after  all  else  had  failed 
me,  with  a  deep  sense  of  gratitude  I  bear  witness  in  behalf  of 
thousands,  once  dying  but  now  in  health  and  happiness,  and 
whose  praises  are  encircling  the  world  and  revivifying  the 
dead  hopes  of  despairing,  dying  men. 

Christian  Science  declares  God  aright  and  reveals  Him  as 
Divine  Love.  This  revelation  dispels  all  gloomy,  portentous 
fear  of  God  or  His  will  and  law  and  presents  a  Heavenly 
Father  that  is  always  good  and  doeth  well.  The  Christian 
Scientist  learns  to  turn  to  this  God  as  an  "  ever  present  help," 
as  "  the  Healer  of  all  thy  diseases,"  and  as  being  ready,  willing 
and  able  to  save  unto  the  uttermost  from  all  evil. 


386     Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

The  light  which  ''  Science  and  Health  "  sheds  on  the  sacred 
scriptures  makes  clear  the  revealed  word  and  presents  the  spirit- 
ual interpretation  of  the  Bible,  which  is  the  true  saving  sense 
thereof.  Christian  Scientists  cling  steadfastly  to  this  book 
without  fear  of  criticism,  changing  creeds  or  the  clamor  of  the 
hour. 

Christian  Science  brings  to  light  the  real  divinity  and  Mes- 
siahship  of  Christ,  so  that  the  disciple  no  longer  gropes  amid 
the  mysterious,  but  knows  just  why  and  how  Christ  is  our 
Saviour,  not  alone  after  sin,  sickness  and  death,  but  from  these 
evils.  Christian  Scientists  gladly  learn  the  way  of  this  Saviour, 
and  strive  for  the  life  that  is  in  imitation  of  His  purity  and 
goodness. 

Christian  Science  encourages  prayer  without  ceasing,  and 
its  followers  are  learning  the  prayer  that  is  answered  and 
which  heals  the  sick.  It  inculcates  the  highest  conceivable 
morality.  It  shows  that  the  only  possible  escape  from  the 
penalty  for  sin  is  to  stop  sinning.  It  cancels  temptation  and 
rationally  inclines  the  sinner  to  the  abandonment  of  evil;  not 
because  of  fear  or  threat  but  because  of  a  new-born  and  natural 
affection  for  goodness  and  holiness. 

It  enables  mortals  to  master  fear,  worry,  care,  grief  and  all 
kindred  offspring  of  the  carnal  mind  or  evil  sense  of  life. 

It  leads  its  follower  to  a  spiritual  height  where  true  Chris- 
tianity, logic,  reason  and  science  coincide.  It  releases  him 
from  the  intolerable  demand  that  in  order  to  be  saved  he  must 
have  blind  faith  in  an  unknowable  God,  a  mysterious  and 
supernatural  Saviour  and  an  impenetrable  plan  of  salvation 
after  death.  Jesus  said,  ''  Ye  shall  know  the  Truth  and  the 
Truth  shall  make  you  free,"  and  this  promise  is  being  prac- 
tically fulfilled,  now. 

The  infidel  or  agnostic,  who  has  been  amazed  and  repelled 
by  the  myriads  of  fabulous  conceptions  of  Deity  which  men 
have  been  pleased  to  say  were  God,  has  learned  through  Chris- 
tian Science  to  know  God  aright,  to  worship  and  love  Him. 

Thousands  of  drunkards  in  the  bondage  of  hereditary  or 


Christian  Science  387 

acquired  vice  have  found  that  Christian  Science  does  two 
things  that  neither  drugs  nor  resistance  have  ever  done.  It 
destroys  appetite  and  reinstates  lost  will  and  control^  No 
drunkard  is  ever  safe  until  thus  transformed  by  the  renewing 
of  Spirit. 

Christian  Science  has  healed  thousands  of  instances  of 
disease  that  have  been  pronounced  incurable  by  eminent  medi- 
cal authority.  It  is  making  people  happier,  better  and  health- 
ier. It  enables  them  to  cope  more  successfully  with  fear,  pain, 
sickness  and  all  the  vicissitudes  of  life.  It  adds  impulse  and 
energy  to  all  righteous  endeavor.  It  increases  the  capacity  to 
do  business  and  control  circumstances  and  is  of  assistance  and 
help  in  every  department  and  circumstance  of  life. 

The  man  who  is  touched  by  its  influence  finds  himself  more 
devout  but  less  gloomy;  more  confident  and  self-reliant  but 
less  conceited  and  vainglorious.  He  loses  the  pleasure  of  sin 
and  finds  the  satisfaction  of  right  living.  He  becomes  more 
tolerant,  just,  upright  and  pure.  He  learns  the  art  of  loving 
his  neighbour  and  learns  to  be  merciful  and  forgiving.  He  ex- 
periences a  yearning  for  a  higher  and  more  spiritual  life  and 
the  Mind  of  Christ  which  overcomes  sin,  heals  the  sick  and  es- 
tablishes the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  within. 

If  the  world  lived  up  to  the  highest  teachings  of  Christian 
Science,  sin  and  sickness  would  be  abolished  and  the  millenium 
would  be  at  hand. 

Christian  Scientists  rejoice  in  the  knowledge  that  they  are 
proving  its  verity  and  realizing  in  a  measure  the  fruition  of 
the  promises  which  have  been  the  hope  of  ages. 

These  are  some  of  the  fruits,  the  indisputable  facts,  which 
are  in  manifestation  of  the  boundless  good  of  Christian 
Science. 

I  submit  to  the  consideration  of  every  well  ordered  mind, 
the  proposition  that  they  are  like  unto  the  results  of  Christ's 
ministry  and  in  keeping  with  the  commandments,  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  and  the  highest  conceivable  ideals  of  Christian 
life,  the  welfare  of  man  and  the  reign  of  God  on  earth. 


christian  Science 


Christian  Science 


BY 


The  Reverend  WILLIAM  H.  P.  FAUNCE,  D.D. 

ALL  persons  familiar  with  the  intellectual  life  of  our  time 
are  conscious  of  a  wave  of  "  new  thought  "  now  sweep- 
ing over  this  country.  This  thought  assumes  Protean  forms, 
and  manifests  itself  in  a  mass  of  literature  of  all  shades,  from 
the  sublime  to  the  ridiculous.  The  movement  has  a  twofold 
origin.  On  the  one  hand,  it  comes  from  the  German  idealism 
of  Hegel  and  Fichte,  which  (mediated  by  Thomas  Hill 
Green)  has  at  last  filtered  down  through  all  the  strata  of  so- 
ciety and  reached  the  average  man.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
comes  from  contact  with  the  religions  of  the  Orient,  and  a 
new  appreciation  of  their  mystic  peace  and  brooding  calm. 

A  foretaste  of  this  *'  new  thought "  appeared  in  the  New 
England  Transcendentalism  of  fifty  years  ago;  it  achieved  its 
brightest  literary  expression  in  Emerson,  and  its  passing  em- 
bodiment in  the  Brook  Farm  experiment.  But  that  move- 
ment was  chiefly  confined  to  New  England.  The  present 
movement — a  reaction  from  the  deistic  view  of  the  world 
which  has  long  pervaded  both  science  and  theology — covers 
the  entire  country,  and  is  putting  forth  a  quantity  of  literature 
of  whose  extent  few  are  aware.  The  philosophy  underlying 
the  whole  is  optimistic  and  idealistic,  and  often  claims  and 
produces  large  results  in  bodily  healing.  Mrs.  Eddy  is  only 
one — the  most  successful  one — of  scores  of  teachers  in  this 
country  who  are  now  insisting  on  the  power  of  thought  to 
change  life,  and  the  immanence  of  God  in  such  a  sense  that 
pain  and  grief  and  sin  can  be  practically  ignored. 

*  Reprinted  by  permission  of  Fleming  H.  Revell  Co;  Copyrighted,  1899, 
Goodman  &  Dickerson  Co. 


392      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

A    CRUDE   IDEALISM 

Most  of  these  teachers  are  destitute  of  philosophical  train- 
ing, and  are  putting  forth  crude  systems  more  wonderful  than 
Joseph's  coat  which  was  7wt  "  of  many  colours."  ''  They  have 
been  at  a  great  feast  of  languages  and  stolen  the  scraps."  They 
strongly  antagonize  each  other,  and  unite  only  in  antagonizing 
both  materialism  and  scholastic  orthodoxy.  Oriental  impor- 
tations, the  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  the  Parliament  of  Religions, 
wander  through  the  country,  unfolding  outworn  theories  of 
the  Orient  as  the  latest  fad  of  the  Occident.  Indian  Swamis 
enter  Boston  parlors  and  instruct  companies  of  adoring  women 
in  the  science  of  mist  and  moonbeams.  Some  of  Mrs.  Eddy's 
pupils,  weary  of  her  personal  control,  have  revolted  and  set  up 
schools  of  their  own.  "  Metaphysical  healing "  is  largely 
practiced  in  the  eastern  states  by  those  who  utterly  reject 
Christian  Science.  On  a  much  higher  intellectual  level  are  the 
books  of  Dr.  Dresser,  Ralph  Waldo  Trine  and  Henry  Wood, 
all  having  an  extraordinary  sale,  all  insisting  that  "  there  is 
nothing  either  good  or  bad  but  thinking  makes  it  so,"  all  giv- 
ing an  idealistic  and  spiritual  interpretation  of  the  universe, 
and  all  succeeding  in  lifting  from  scores  of  weary  souls  a 
burden  of  care  and  fear  and  pain  which  we  have  been  taught 
is  inalienable  from  human  life.  All  of  these  teachers  unite  in 
rejecting  the  eighteenth-century  conception  of  God  as  an  "  ab- 
sentee," or  as  an  "  occasional  visitor,"  or  as  a  "  magnified 
Lord  Shaftesbury;  "  and  when  they  are  theists  in  any  real 
sense,  affirm  that  God  is  immanent  in  the  human  soul,  and 
that  if  we  will  but  "  practice  His  presence  "  we  shall  be  de- 
livered from  all  the  ills  consequent  on  faith  in  a  distant  deity. 
We  may  at  least  rejoice  that  the  tendencies  of  our  time  are  no 
longer  toward  disbelief  in  a  spiritual  world.  So  far  has  the 
pendulum  swung,  that  the  same  popular  literature  which,  thirty 
years  ago,  was  trying  to  believe  that  "  thought  is  a  secretion  of 
the  brain,"  now  gravely  affirms  that  the  brain  is  a  figment  of 
thought ! 

What,  now  is  the  particular  phase  of  this  thought  embodied 


Christian  Science  393 

in  ''  Christian  Science?  "  We  are  concerned  now  only  with  its 
philosophy,  which  is  most  certainly  a  rare  collection  of  shreds 
and  patches.  Among  the  many  notions  inconsistently  united 
we  may  distinguish  a  few  dominant  thoughts. 

1.  The  idealistic  conception  of  matter.  A  modern  teacher 
has  called  Christian  Science  "  an  incomplete  misconception  of 
Berkeleyanism."  But  good  Bishop  Berkeley's  faith  in  Chris- 
tianity was  not  hindered  in  the  least  by  his  philosophical  ex- 
planation of  the  material  universe.  In  order  to  combat  atheism 
and  materialism,  he  asserted  and  believed  that  the  apparently 
external  world  exists  only  in  our  own  idea,  and  that  minds 
alone  have  real  existence.  This  is  a  philosophic  view  which 
will  always  have  its  advocates,  and  need  not  be  discussed  here. 
All  human  beings  must  act  as  if  matter  did  exists  and  the 
speculative  denial  has  little  influence  on  life.  If  the  Christian 
Scientist  wishes  to  build  a  house,  he  must  treat  bricks,  mortar 
and  timber  just  as  every  other  man  treats  them,  even  though 
he  honestly  believes  that  the  bricks  are  all  in  his  own  brain. 
Only  in  the  treatment  of  the  human  body  does  the  idealism 
have  practical  consequences.  If  a  man  believes  that  his  body 
is  the  pure  expression  and  even  the  creation  of  mind,  he  will 
certainly  endeavour  to  shape  and  control  that  body  mainly 
through  the  maintenance  of  mental  conditions. 

2.  A  monistic  conception  of  God  and  His  world,  ever  verg- 
ing into  pantheism.  The  publication  of  Dr.  Strong's  "  Ethical 
Monism  "  was  one  of  the  most  significant  events  in  the  his- 
tory of  Christian  thought  in  this  country.  It  showed  how 
great  is  the  present  reaction  from  a  mechanical  and  external 
theology,  and  how  even  the  thinkers  who  have  stood  most 
stoutly  for  the  reality  of  the  soul,  of  sin,  and  of  redemption, 
are  now  passionately  demanding  some  unifying  conception  of 
the  world-order.  Dr.  Strong  is  abundantly  able  to  safeguard 
his  monism ;  but  Mrs.  Eddy  goes  straight  over  into  the  camp 
of  those  who  deny  personality  to  God,  and  all  real  freedom 
and  responsibility  to  man.  She  explicitly  denies  that  God  is 
personal.     Her  denial  is  meant  as  a  protest  against  anthropo- 


394      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

morphism;  but  it  goes  so  far  as  to  make  God  a  metaphysical 
abstraction  or  principle. 

DENIES  DIVINE   PERSONALITY 

A  young  man  recently  came  to  me  who  had  gone  through 
Christian  Science  into  Atheism.  I  asked  him  to  describe  the 
path  he  had  passed  over.  He  answered :  *'  The  Christian 
Science  teacher  began  by  thoroughly  persuading  me  that  Gk)d 
is  not  personal,  but  is  pure  *  Principle.'  After  some  months  I 
accepted  that,  and  then  I  said  to  myself :  '  What  is  a  prin- 
ciple ?  Does  it  have  real  existence  ?  Is  it  an  entity  or  reality  ?  ' 
I  soon  saw  that  a  *  principle  *  is  simply  an  idea  of  my  own 
mind,  and  when  the  Scientist  dissolved  my  God  into  '  prin- 
ciple '  I  ceased  to  believe  in  any  God  whatever.  I  now  believe 
simply  in  myself." 

Mrs.  Eddy  answers  the  question,  **  What  is  God  ?  "  as  fol- 
lows :  *'  God  is  divine  Principle,  supreme  incorporeal  Being, 
Mind,  Spirit,  Soul,  Truth,  Love."  At  the  head  of  this  con- 
fusing list  of  alleged  synonyms  she  puts  Principle,  as  being  the 
most  thoroughly  de-personalized  term,  and  hence  best  suited 
to  her  purpose.  But  let  us  ask  her  to  define  more  closely. 
Does  her  God  possess  consciousness,  will,  purpose?  Is  He 
so  like  to  the  noblest  earthly  father  that  our  highest  name  for 
him  is  Heavenly  Father,  and  that  we  can  commune  with  Him, 
pray  to  Him?  To  all  this  Mrs.  Eddy  must  answer.  No.  To 
her  God  one  must  not  pray,  for  that  would  be  to  acknowledge 
Him  as  personal.  While  one  might  in  an  unwary  moment 
call  her  God  "  Father,"  yet  that  term  is  omitted  from  her 
definition  of  God.  Her  God  is  "  Being,"  but  being  need  not 
be  conscious  of  its  own  existence,  or  of  ours.  Her  God  is 
Truth;  but  truth  is  destitute  of  volition  or  affection  for  man. 
Her  God  is  Life;  but  life  in  moss  and  tree  is  unconscious  and 
unintelligent.  Her  God  is  Love;  but  not  the  love  which  can 
answer  any  request  for  aid.  Her  God  is  Mind,  Spirit,  Soul, 
provided  that  we  interpret  those  words  as  synonyms  of  un- 
conscious ''  principle." 


Christian  Science  395 

ELASTIC    TERMS 

Much  of  the  success  of  Christian  Science  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  its  vague  phraseology  is  equally  acceptable  to  the  evan- 
gelical Christian  and  to  the  atheist.  The  average  Christian,  ap- 
proaching the  Christian  Science  creed  on  one  side,  hears  that 
God  is  "  Spirit,  omnipresent  and  eternal,"  and  at  once  accepts 
the  teaching.  The  atheist,  coming  up  on  the  other  side,  hears 
that  the  only  God  is  "  principle,  truth,  harmony,"  and  he 
can  accept  it  without  the  slightest  change  of  position.  I  would 
not  charge  conscious  duplicity  upon  Christian  Science  teach- 
ers. But  I  do  know  that  they  will  say  to  the  simple-minded 
Christian:  "  We.of  course  believe  in  prayer,  and  we  use  the 
Lord's  prayer  at  every  service ;  "  while  to  the  antagonist  of 
Christianity  they  will  say :  ''  You  know  in  what  sense  we  be- 
lieve in  prayer — it  is  by  affirming  Principle." 

When  Mrs.  Eddy  in  her  reaction  from  deism  joins  Theodore 
Parker  in  denying  personality  to  God,  she  makes  her  capital 
blunder  out  of  which  all  other  blunders  spring.  She  thinks 
personality  means  limitation  and  corporeality.  But  Dr.  Mar- 
tineau  has  well  said :  "  You  cannot  deny  God's  personality 
without  sacrificing  His  infinitude ;  for  there  is  a  mode  of  action 
— the  preferential — the  very  mode  which  distinguishes  ra- 
tional beings — from  which  you  exclude  Him."  Since  Mrs. 
Eddy's  deity  is  incapable  of  preferring  and  willing  and  seek- 
ing moral  ends  and  communing  with  His  children,  since  He  is 
less  than  personal,  He  is  less  than  the  Christian  God,  the 
Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

3.  Of  course  such  a  faith  must  issue  in  optimism.  Pain 
vanishes,  since  God  is  incapable  of  pain,  and  God  is  the  only 
reality.  Mrs.  Eddy  is  as  contemptuous  toward  pain  as  was 
Marcus  Aurelius  when  he  wrote :  ''  Do  not  suppose  you  are 
hurt  and  your  complaint  ceases.  Cease  your  complaint  and 
you  are  not  hurt."  Indeed,  her  steadfast  denial,  i.  e,,  her  de- 
termination to  ignore,  has  close  affinity  with  ancient  stoicism. 
There  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun.  The  Emersonian  oracle 
has  long  been  telling  us  that  "  good  is  positive,  evil  only  pri- 


396      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

vative  " ;  Browning  has  long  been  crying,  "  All's  right  with  the 
world."  But  what  the  stoics  and  the  poets  have  always  af- 
firmed as  ideally  true,  Christian  Science  turns  into  bald  prose 
propositions,  telling  us  that,  by  refusing  to  think  of  the  ills 
that  flesh  is  heir  to,  we  may  destroy  their  phantasmagorial 
existence. 

Still  further  goes  this  optimism.  It  denies  that  sin  exists, 
save  in  our  thought  of  it,  i.  e.,  in  "  mortal  mind."  It  declares 
that  "  man  is  incapable  of  sin,  sickness  and  death,  inasmuch  as 
he  derives  his  essence  from  God,  and  possesses  not  a  single 
original,  or  underived  power."  Here  again  we  are  misled  by 
alleged  synonyms.  Certainly  man  has  no  "  underived " 
power;  but  has  he  no  "  original  "  power?  Has  he  no  power  to 
originate  action,  to  determine  some  events,  to  choose  between 
good  and  evil  ?  If  not,  we  are  landed  at  once  in  the  pantheism 
where  good  and  evil  coalesce  in  universal  being.  The  Chris- 
tian Church  has  always  believed  in  a  God  not  to  be  identified 
with  His  own  creation,  a  God  distinct,  though  not  separate 
from  His  children,  a  God  with  power 

"  To  create  man,  and  then  leave  him 
Able,  his  own  word  saith,  to  grieve  him." 

Mrs.  Eddy  denies  that  man  is  able  to  grieve  God,  both  be- 
cause God  is  incapable  of  grief  or  any  other  emotion,  and  be- 
cause all  human  sin  is  apparent  only,  and  in  reality  does  not 
exist.  Such  teaching  is  exceedingly  perilous  to  the  moral  life. 
It  coincides  with  the  teaching  of  the  English  Antinomians  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  who  afiirmed  that  "  the  feelings  of 
conscience,  which  tell  them  that  sin  is  theirs,  arise  from  a  want 
of  knowing  the  truth."  In  view  of  Christian  Science,  since 
man  is  incapable  of  sin,  conviction  of  sin  is  a  dream,  and  re- 
demption from  it  an  impossibility.  Christ  therefore  is  the 
''  Way-shower,"  no  longer  Himself  the  Way.  When  a  lead- 
ing Christian  Scientist  said  to  me :  "  Mrs.  Eddy  is  the  way  to 
God,"  I  answered,  "  I  thought  Christ  was  the  Way."  "  But 
Christ,  you  know,  is  dead,"  she  answered,  "  and  Mrs.  Eddy  is 


Christian  Science  397 

now  alive."  "  But  Mrs.  Eddy  must  soon  die,  and  who  then 
will  be  the  way  ?  "  "  Well,  we  do  not  think  that  Mrs.  Eddy 
will — what  you  call  die;  we  expect  she  will — dissolve — into — 
the  life  of  the  universe!  "  Could  optimism  further  go?  Yet 
men  call  this  age — the  age  of  Keely  and  Mrs.  Eddy — a  ma- 
terialistic age ! 

TWO   TRUTHS   AFFIRMED 

Let  me  now  mention  briefly  some  of  the  strong  and  the 
weak  elements  in  this  strange  Christian  Science  creed. 

It  is  strong  in  its  clear  realization  of  the  immanence  of  God. 
God  is  not  only  '*  in  His  heaven,"  but  God  is  in  His  world. 
The  average  Christian  Church  is  still  shy  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  leaving  that  to  Northfield  and  Keswick,  and  be- 
lieves only  in  a  far-away  Deity  who  occasionally  has  interfered 
with  His  world  to  work  a  miracle.  The  average  Christian 
Church  believes  in  an  inspiration  which  ceased  about  100  A. 
D.,  and  miracles  which  ceased  about  300  A.  D.,  and  in  an  in- 
terpretation of  the  Bible  which  makes  it  the  story  of  what  was 
but  no  longer  is.  Christian  Science  affirms  that  God  is  as  near 
His  world  to-day  as  in  any  age,  and  performing  all  the 
wonders  now  that  He  ever  performed.  In  this  it  agrees  with 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and  is  a  standing  reproach  to 
Protestant  unbelief. 

Christian  Science  has  undoubtedly  gotten  hold  of  a  great 
truth  in  its  affirmance  that  the  best  way  to  heal  the  body  is 
through  the  mind.  The  principle  which  underlies  all  these 
various  forms  of  healing,  "  metaphysical,"  "  mental,"  "  faith," 
or  "  Christian  Science  "  healing,  is  the  same,  as  Dr.  Buckley 
has  clearly  shown,  or  Mr.  Hudson  in  his  "  Law  of  Psychic 
Phenomena."  If  we  believe  that  the  mind  is  more  than  the 
body,  and  that  all  our  minds  are  in  contact  with  the  infinite 
Mind,  why  should  we  not,  when  afflicted  with  bodily  disorder, 
go  first,  not  to  the  druggist,  but  to  some  friend  of  strong 
mental  and  spiritual  powers?  If  we  believe  in  prayer,  why 
should  we  not  pray  to  that  Spirit  in  which  we  ''  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being  "  ?     Medicine  has  long  treated  the  mind 


398       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

through  the  body;  now  let  it  show  as  much  zeal  in  treating 
the  body  through  the  mind.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  Prof. 
James,  of  Harvard  University,  has  recently  defended  the 
Christian  Scientists  against  the  enaction  of  an  oppressive  law 
by  the  Massachusetts  Legislature — not  because  he  can  accept 
their  bizarre  philosophy,  but  because  he  believes  that  the  power 
of  the  mental  over  the  physical  life  is  greater  than  any  ac- 
credited philosophy  has  been  willing  to  admit,  and  that  the 
possession  of  a  medical  diploma  does  not  entitle  any  man  to  a 
monopoly  of  healing. 

The  weakness  and  danger  of  Christian  Science  are  to  be 
found,  especially,  in  the  following  points : 

I.  In  a  quite  unwarranted  use  of  the  Bible.  Mrs.  Eddy 
professes  greatest  attachment  to  the  scriptures,  and  her  fol- 
low^ers  are  constant  readers  of  the  Bible.  Yet  she  selects  only 
certain  portions  of  the  Bible,  and  commends  those  portions 
only  when  interpreted  allegorically  and  arbitrarily.  Thus,  in 
commenting  on  Gen.  2 : 7,  she  mildly  queries :  "  Is  it  the 
truth  ?  or  is  it  a  lie,  concerning  man  and  God  ?  It  must  be  the 
latter,  for  God  presently  curses  the  ground."  Mr.  Ingersoll, 
in  elucidating  the  '*  Mistakes  of  Moses,"  never  condescended 
to  such  language.  But  not  content  with  the  charge  of  false- 
hood, she  proceeds  to  a  little  exegesis  of  her  own.  In  order  to 
prove  that  "  Adam  "  is  merely  a  name  for  the  "  matter  " 
which  opposes  ''  mind,"  she  suggests  to  her  obedient  followers 
a  short  and  easy  method  with  the  skeptics :  "  Divide  the  name 
Adam  into  two  syllables,  and  it  reads,  a  dam  or  obstruction." 
And  the  book  which  contains  this  sample  of  exegesis  is  sup- 
posed to  be  addressed  to  sane  men  and  women ! 

The  Bible  flames  from  beginning  to  end  with  a  passion  for 
righteousness,  and  an  indignation  against  iniquity.  To  say 
that  man  is  "  incapable  of  sin  "  is  to  stultify  the  noble  army 
of  martyrs,  to  discredit  all  the  prophets  and  apostles,  and  to 
make  the  life  and  death  of  Christ  farcical.  Men  may  believe 
that  sin  is  temporary,  that  at  last  God  shall  be  all  in  all,  and 
still  follow  the  Christ.     But  to  say  that  man  is  "  incapable  of 


Christian  Science  399 

sin"  is  to  rob  man  of  real  freedom  and  responsibility,  and 
make  Christ  only  a  "  Way-shower  "  instead  of  the  Way. 

2.  Another  danger  lies  in  a  dissolving  of  God  into  a  misty, 
unconscious  abstraction.  In  her  attempt  to  get  rid  of  anthropo- 
morphism Mrs.  Eddy  denies  personality.  But  John  Fiske  has 
truly  said :  "  We  are  bound  to  conceive  of  the  Eternal  Reality 
in  terms  of  the  only  reality  that  we  know,  or  else  refrain  from 
conceiving  it  under  any  form  whatever.''  To  ascribe  human 
weakness  and  limitation  to  God,  is  indeed  an  error  and  a  folly. 
But  all  the  objects  we  know  are  either  persons  or  things. 
Which  is  Mrs.  Eddy's  God?  Does  she  believe  in  the  thing- 
ness of  God,  or  the  personality  of  God?  The  answer  of  her 
books  is  clear — she  believes  in  the  thingness  of  God,  in  a  Sub- 
stance like  that  of  Spinoza,  incapable  of  purpose,  choice,  or 
consciousness,  a  Being  whose  shadowy  self  is  best  described 
as  ''  Principle." 

MONEY  IS  NOT  DESPISED 

3.  A  danger  in  this  movement,  which  perhaps  has  not  yet 
developed,  is  the  confusing  of  moral  distinctions  through  the 
denial  of  the  reality  of  evil.  I  gladly  bear  witness  to  the  per- 
sonal nobility  and  high-mindedness  of  many  Christian  Scien- 
tists. I  rejoice  to  find  beauty  in  lives  whose  creed  I  cannot 
accept.  Yet  the  Scientists  are  often  sorely  put  to  it  to  explain 
how  Mrs.  Eddy  could  charge  each  pupil  $300  for  twelve  les- 
sons, or  what  she  does  with  the  vast  revenues  which  constantly 
come  into  her  hands.  The  usual  explanation  is  that  any  sum  is 
small  in  comparison  with  the  benefits  received,  and  that  *'  all 
that  a  man  hath  will  he  give  for  his  life."  In  absolute  re- 
ligious despotism,  combined  with  the  belief  that  one  is  "  in- 
capable of  sin,"  however  we  may  explain  the  words,  danger 
always  lurks.  The  latest  step  in  this  line,  and  perhaps  the  most 
surprising,  is  the  publication  in  the  Christian  Science  Weekly 
for  January  19  of  the  following  card  concerning  "  Christian 
Science  Souvenir  Spoons  " :  "  On  each  of  these  most  beautiful 
spoons  is  a  motto  in  bas-relief,  that  every  person  on  earth 


400      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

needs  to  hold  in  thought.  Mother  requests  that  Christian 
Scientists  shall  not  ask  to  be  informed  what  this  motto  is,  but 
each  Scientist  shall  purchase  at  least  one  spoon,  and  those  who 
can  afford  it,  one  dozen  spoons,  that  their  families  may  read 
this  motto  at  every  meal,  and  their  guests  he  made  partakers 
of  its  simple  truth.  (Signed.)  Mary  Baker  Eddy."  Probably 
one  outside  the  mystic  circle  should  not  "  ask  to  be  informed  " 
as  to  the  price  of  these  precious  spoons;  nor  as  to  the  object  of 
the  sale ;  nor  as  to  the  proceeds  of  the  sale,  if  every  Scientist  of 
the  300,000  claimed  in  this  country  were  to  purchase  one  or 
one  dozen ;  nor  as  to  the  results  if  ''  every  person  on  earth  " 
should  seek  after  this  talismanic  motto;  nor  whether  the 
''  Christian  Science  Souvenir  Company  "  is  identical  with  the 
"  Church  of  Christ,  Scientist."  But  even  one  outside  the  circle 
may  think,  and  marvel,  and  wonder  if  all  the  followers  of  the 
''  Mother  "  will  approve.  "  Beloved,  believe  not  every  spirit, 
but  try  the  spirits  whether  they  are  of  God." 


The  Church  and  Ethical  Leadership 


The  Church  and  Ethical  Leadership 

BY 

The  Reverend  WILLIAM  E,  BARTON,  D.D. 

THE  Church  exists  for  ethical  ends.  However  much  the 
purpose  of  the  Church  may  transcend  what  superficially 
is  called  '*  mere  morality,"  its  reason  for  being  is  in  the  ethical 
nature  of  God.  Its  purpose,  therefore,  in  doctrine,  in  ritual, 
in  preaching,  is  ethical,  and  must  be  judged  by  its  ethical  bear- 
ing. The  twentieth  century  will  not  easily  tolerate  a  Church 
which  forgets  or  neglects  these  ethical  ends. 

There  is  no  danger  more  real  or  insidious  than  that  the 
Church  may  come  to  consider  as  an  end  what  are  in  fact  but 
some  of  the  means  to  this  end.  The  history  of  Israel  abounds 
in  illustrations,  and  the  writings  of  the  prophets  are  largely 
made  up  of  protests  against  the  constant  tendency  of  organi- 
zation to  a  conservatism  which  regards  its  own  machinery  as 
more  sacred  than  that  for  which  the  machinery  exists.  The 
history  of  the  Christian  Church  has  illustrations  also  of  the 
danger  which  tempts  the  Church  to  believe  either  that  ritual 
on  the  one  hand  or  dogma  on  the  other  is  the  real  end  of  the 
Church.  To-day  as  ever  the  real  answer  to  the  question, 
"  Wherewith  shall  I  come  before  Jehovah?  "  is  the  declaration 
that  the  sum  of  God's  requirement  is  that  man  shall  do  justly 
and  love  mercy  and  walk  humbly  with  their  God.  To  this  end 
is  the  Church  established,  and  to  this  ultimate  test  must  all 
her  effort  be  brought. 

Now,  in  so  far  as  the  Church  has  failed  in  ethical  leadership 
it  has  been  through  failure  to  keep  this  end  constantly  in  view 
as  the  real  end ;  the  ethical  end  has  been  an  end  often  with 
something  that  to  the  unenlightened  mind  seemed  superim- 
posed. The  Church  has  thought  at  times  that,  important  as  it 
has  always  considered  righteousness,  it  was  rather  an  inci- 
dental than  an  end  of  religion ;  that  righteousness  is  salvation 

403 


404      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

is  a  proposition  which  must  be  explained  to  be  accepted  even 
now  by  many  Christians. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  dwell  upon,  nor  even  to  specify,  the 
failures  of  this  kind.  Let  him  who  will,  read  them  in  Old  Tes- 
tament history  and  in  the  records  ancient  and  modern  of  the 
Christian  Church.  Suffice  it  to  say,  the  failures,  when  there 
have  been  failures,  have  been  of  this  sort.  Rather  than  dwell 
upon  these  failures,  let  me  suggest  the  other,  the  better,  the 
truer  aspect  of  the  truth. 

How  much  the  world  owes  for  its  ethical  ideal  and  purpose 
to  the  leadership  of  Israel.  We  have  been  discovering  many 
things  in  the  ruins  of  ancient  cities;  we  have  not  found  many 
decalogues.  We  know  more  than  we  once  did  about  compara- 
tive religion,  and  we  have  found  that  the  Jews  held  this  rite 
which  we  have  thought  distinctive  in  common  with  the  Egyp- 
tians, and  that  doctrine  which  we  have  supposed  their  monop- 
oly with  the  Assyrians,  and  that  in  perception  of  yonder  truth 
the  ancient  Persians  were  their  superiors;  but  we  have  not 
found  any  ethical  ideal  which  dispossesses  this  ancient  nation 
from  its  title  to  leadership.  Buddha's  five  commandments  are 
as  good,  and  I  doubt  not  as  truly  from  God,  as  the  corre- 
sponding five  of  Moses'  ten; — ^but  it  is  not  Buddha  but  Moses 
who  has  led  the  world's  most  enlightened  nations  in  their  leg- 
islation, in  their  conception  of  duty  to  God,  and  their  ideal 
of  honesty  and  virtue  and  holiness  among  men.  Their  hard 
legalism  had  its  limitations,  their  narrow  bigotry  wrought 
monumental  folly, — for  there  is  no  bigotry  like  the  bigotry  of 
enlightenment, — but  their  stern  monotheism  linked  to  its  pure 
worship  a  pure  family  and  social  life,  and  their  high  thought 
of  God  co-ordinated  with  it  a  high  thought  of  human  duty. 
That  "  the  law  was  given  by  Moses  "  is  no  disgrace  either  to 
Moses  or  to  the  law,  but  an  everlasting  honour  to  the  great  per- 
sonality that  stamped  contemporary  and  subsequent  legislation 
with  his  immortal  name,  and  to  the  law  which,  with  all  its 
imperfections,  is  the  world's  schoolmaster  to  bring  it  to  Christ 
and  the  ethics  of  His  religion. 


The  Church  and  Ethical  Leadership        405 

When  we  come  to  early  Christianity  there  is  yet  more  to  be 
said.  Nor  need  we  care  to  say  more  than  has  been  said  by  Gib- 
bon of  the  purity  of  the  life  of  the  early  Christians  in  an  im- 
pure age  as  one  of  the  five  causes  of  the  spread  of  Christianity. 
Nor  can  this  century  afford  to  forget  its  obligations  to  those  ages 
when  Christianity  was  getting  its  depth  and  its  ideal.  There 
is  much  to  be  read  with  sorrow.  There  are  ages  of  dreary  con- 
troversy over  homoo^isian  and  Ulioque  and  other  matters  when 
the  battle  waxed  hot  in  proportion  to  the  destiny  of  human 
ignorance,  and  the  assurance  of  the  contestants  was  in  inverse 
ratio  with  the  clearness  of  Divine  revelation;  but  still  there 
was  the  preservation  and  transmission,  and  even  the  clarifica- 
tion of  an  ethical  idea. 

Even  in  what  we  call  the  dark  ages  the  Church  did  not 
wholly  lose  its  leadership  in  ethics.  Even  when  the  Church  was 
elaborating  its  ritual  till  the  soul  of  piety  died  out  of  it,  and  em- 
phasizing the  value  of  its  sacraments  till  grace  became  mechan- 
ical and  artificial,  it  did  not  wholly  lose  its  thought  of  the  pre- 
eminence of  duty  and  of  personal  piety.  Side  by  side  with  the 
movement  which  made  the  church  great  as  a  visible  organiza- 
tion and  throned  it  in  Rome  with  power  and  splendour,  grew  the 
other  movement  which  sought  God  in  the  desert  and  the  cave, 
and  there,  with  splendid  inconsistency,  was  shown  the  grace  of 
the  Church.  For,  when  her  pontiffs  and  councils  were  saying 
that  men  must  be  saved  by  her  sacraments,  she  was  also  canon- 
izing the  names  and  honouring  the  lives  of  men  who  cut  them- 
selves off  from  the  sacraments,  and  preserved  and  manifested 
the  ethical  ideal  in  isolated  but  holy  lives.  That  the  system 
was  abnormal,  that  monasticism  had  its  ethical  dangers,  we 
may  and  do  readily  admit ;  yet  we  ought  to  remember  that  the 
Church  honoured  and  favoured  its  ethical  ideal  and  advanced 
its  leadership  in  the  very  age  when  personal  piety  and  quiet 
of  soul  with  God  seemed  lost  in  the  world  movements  of  a 
vast  politico-religious  organization. 

If  we  examine  the  results  which  the  Church  has  accom- 
plished in  the  world  as  proof  of  its  ethical  leadership  we  shall 


4o6      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

find,  what  Dr.  Storrs  so  ably  set  forth  in  his  lectures  on  "  The 
Divine  Origin  of  Christianity  Indicated  by  its  Historical  Ef- 
fects." The  Church  has  set  forth,  as  is  nowhere  else  exhibited, 
the  basis  of  ethics,  and  a  new  conception  of  duty,  of  worship, 
of  the  moral  worth  of  man  and  of  the  being  and  relation  of 
God.  It  has  given  us  a  new  ideal  of  childhood ;  it  has  brought 
a  new  glory  to  womanhood;  it  has  ameliorated  the  conditions 
of  slavery  and  prepared  for  emancipation;  it  has  reduced  the 
occasions  for  war,  and  introduced  some  element  of  mercy 
even  into  that  barbarity,  and  has  given  to  the  world  a  hope, 
which  as  yet  is  only  a  hope,  but  a  hope  that  will  not  confess  it- 
self a  vain  one,  of  universal  peace.  It  has  inspired  in  men  a 
belief  in  the  moral  value  of  being  that  has  created  a  hope  which 
is  one  of  the  most  potent  of  all  influences  for  good ;  and  which 
may  be  measured  either  against  the  hopelessness  of  the  world 
before  the  Church  had  gained  a  footing,  or  the  hopelessness 
of  non-Christian  lands  and  faiths,  or  the  hopelessness  of  un- 
Christianized  Christendom.  In  all  this,  which  exhibits  leader- 
ship of  the  first  order,  the  Church  has  won  its  record  for  nine- 
teen centuries  of  progress  and  of  hope. 

It  is  now  intently  inquiring  how  its  activities  and  philan- 
thropies may  not  simply  relieve  poverty,  but  hasten  its  re- 
moval; and  how  by  encouraging  right  relations  between  man 
and  man  it  may  aid  in  bringing  in  a  better  social  order.  If 
it  does  this  with  even  partial  success  it  deserves  glad  recogni- 
tion and  encouragement. 

But  we  should  remember  that  the  Church  is  the  real  leader  in 
not  a  few  ethical  movements  which  in  popular  thought  exist 
outside  its  organization.  The  Church  has  been  blamed  by 
zealous  opponents  of  the  anti-slavery  cause  because  it  did  not 
always  denounce  slavery  with  their  own  unsparing  severity; 
but  the  Church  was  the  real  leader  in  the  anti-slavery  crusade. 
Even  the  zealous  abolitionists  who  called  themselves  "  come- 
outers"  got  from  within  the  Church  the  love  of  men  for  Christ's 
sake  which  made  their  own  protest  effective,  and  their  less  in- 
tense, but  no  less  efficient  brethren  within  the  organized  Church 


The  Church  and  Ethical  Leadership        407 

formed  the  real  body  that  brought  slavery  to  its  end.  Yet, 
had  it  not  been  so,  and  if  men  had  been  compelled  to  go  out- 
side the  organized  Church  to  realize  the  ethical  ideal  which 
they  received  within  it,  it  would  still  deserve  to  be  remem- 
bered that  the  Church  is  much  more  inclusive  than  the  sum  of 
the  Churches. 

At  the  present  day  there  are  reformers  whose  name  is  legion, 
and  they  bombard  the  study  door  of  every  pastor  asking  per- 
mission to  '*  present  the  cause  "  of  this  or  that  on  next  Sunday, 
or  to  take  a  collection  for  some  more  or  less  worthy  philan- 
thropy. If  the  pastor  could  make  room  for  them  all,  he  would 
seldom  need  to  appear  in  his  own  pulpit.  To  the  multitude  of 
good  and  earnest  men  whose  real  or  imaginary  call  is  to  one 
of  these  special  reforms,  and  to  the  greater  throng  of  visionary 
enthusiasts,  the  Church  often  seems  cold  and  heedless  of  great 
and  important  interests;  and  no  one  claims  for  it  perfection. 
But  these  same  causes,  so  far  as  they  are  sane  and  hopeful 
and  truly  benevolent,  have  their  hope  in  the  Church.  The 
social  reformer,  the  political  temperance  orator,  and  the  man 
who  prays  daily  for  the  restoration  of  the  lost  tribes  of  Israel 
may  find  the  Church  too  little  moved  by  their  appeals.  But 
without  the  support  of  the  Church  the  efforts  of  true  reformers 
are  hopeless.  Indeed  the  Church  is  often  overworked  by  its 
too  zealous  members  in  the  interests  of  their  special  causes. 

Again  the  leadership  of  the  Church  must  not  be  forgotten  in 
those  agencies  which,  while  independently  organized  and  con- 
trolled are  yet  integral  parts  of  the  active  life  of  the  Church. 
The  Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  the  Salvation  Army, 
and  all  like  causes,  cannot  be  lost  to  the  Church  by  any  mere 
form  of  organization.  The  spirit  of  Church  life  is  in  their 
wheels,  even  though  the  method  of  operation  is  foreign  to  the 
accustomed  method  of  the  organized  Church.  It  is  the  spirit, 
and  not  the  form;  the  soul,  and  not  the  accident  of  organiza- 
tion that  makes  and  identifies  the  Church. 

Still  again,  the  leadership  of  the  Church  must  be  recognized 
in  agencies  over  which  the  Church  no  longer  exercises  organic 


4o8      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

control,  but  which  it  founded  and  established,  and  whose  genius 
and  spirit  it  created.  Popular  education  in  America  is  of  this 
sort,  and  is  a  mighty  example  of  the  leadership  of  the  Church. 
A  single  denomination  founded  the  five  historic  New  England 
colleges,  and  that  and  other  religious  bodies  have  given  and 
are  giving  princely  sums  for  the  support  of  these  and  other 
schools.  Now,  the  leadership  of  the  Church  is  by  no  means 
limited  to  those  organizations  which  it  directly  controls.  It  is 
felt  in  the  entire  school  system  which  has  grown  up  around 
and  out  of  these  institutions.  The  same  is  true  of  hospitals, 
reformatories  and  asylums.  Many  of  these  under  private  or 
State  control  owe  not  only  their  existence,  but  much  of  what 
is  best  in  their  conduct,  to  the  Church  and  its  spirit  in  the  life 
of  the  community. 

Even  when  the  individual  who  gives  his  life  to  these  causes 
exhibits  least  contact  with  the  Church  as  an  organization,  he 
is  not  outside  its  spiritual  pale.  The  man  who  gives  his  days 
and  nights  to  the  scalpel  and  the  microscope,  working  some- 
times in  peril  of  his  life  that  he  may  discover  a  deadly  germ 
and  its  antitoxin,  may  not  count  himself  a  Christian.  He  may 
live  in  some  respects  a  very  un-Christian  life — more's  the  pity ! 
But  still  I  thank  God  that  even  such  a  man  may  become  in- 
spired with  the  love  of  men  and  their  good  which  is  the  spirit 
of  Christ,  imperfectly  transmuted  through  the  Church.  Even 
if  he  himself  is  purely  mercenary — which  I  greatly  doubt — he 
is  straining  himself  to  reach  the  ethical  ideal  of  the  best  men 
in  his  profession  and  the  community ;  and  the  presence  of  that 
ethical  ideal  bears  witness  that  the  Church  has  not  lost  its 
leadership  even  here.  Nor  must  the  Church  forget  that  this 
man  who  has  so  strained  his  sight  looking  into  the  microscope 
that  he  can  no  longer  see  God  or  providence,  but  only  physical 
causes  and  effects,  is  still  using  the  unatrophied  part  of  his 
soul — his  alert  mind  and  his  professional  skill  and  sympathy — 
for  ends  which  are  one  with  those  of  the  Church. 

The  ethical  leadership  of  the  Church  is  thus  of  the  broadest 
possible  sort.     It  may  be  that  a  political  campaign  will  turn 


The  Church  and  Ethical  Leadership        409 

now  and  then  upon  the  activity  of  the  Church  as  an  organiza- 
tion, effected  through  resolutions  and  caucuses;  but  the  larger 
leadership  will  be  in  exalting  the  ethical  ideal  in  politics  until 
that  ideal  takes  shape  in  the  entire  community  within  and  with- 
out the  Church.  The  Church  may  provide,  and  often  ought  to 
provide,  wholesome  entertainment  and  amusement,  but  a 
larger  proof  of  its  leadership  will  be  found  in  the  type  of 
amusement  which  is  patronized  by  the  body  of  those  whom 
its  influence  reaches.  The  Church  may  in  special  exigencies 
provide  wood-yards  and  working  men's  restaurants  for  the  re- 
lief of  the  poor,  but  a  better  and  larger  proof  of  its  leadership 
will  be  the  infusing  of  the  spirit  of  Christ  into  the  business 
world,  so  that  wood-yards  and  restaurants  shall  be  maintained 
in  righteousness  and  at  fair  profit.  Then  the  wood-yard  man 
and  the  restaurant  man  and  each  of  the  rest  will  be,  not  a  sala- 
ried official  of  the  Church  and  subject  to  suspicion  if  he  con- 
ducts his  business  at  a  profit,  or  to  imposture  if  he  conducts  it  as 
a  charity,  but  a  Christian  man  of  affairs,  testing  every  theory 
by  its  workability.  In  the  long  run  men  must  get  a  living 
while  they  theorize;  and  the  Church  will  do  its  best  ethical 
leading  by  showing  men  how  they  can  at  once  be  Christian 
men  and  live  in  a  world  and  amid  social  conditions  still  far  from 
the  ideal  for  which  they  strive. 

It  is  the  mission  of  the  Church  to  transform  society,  or  as 
we  sometimes  say,  to  prepare  the  world  for  the  coming  of 
Christ.  That  coming  will  be  the  advent  and  triumph  of  his 
spirit  in  all  social  relations.  This  is  the  essential  thing  in  its 
leadership.  It  is  not  to  establish  beneath  its  own  roof  every 
sort  of  commercial  and  social  activity ;  it  is  to  inspire  the  com- 
munity with  an  ideal  which  shall  realize  itself  in  the  world  of 
commerce,  of  politics,  of  amusement,  of  literature,  of  art. 

If  the  Church  does  not  always  realize  fully  its  opportunity; 
if  it  fails  adequately  to  interpret  the  meaning  of  its  transitions, 
— it  does  not  yet  become  reprobate.  Yet  enlargement  comes 
through  another  place, — God  raises  from  the  stones  children 
unto  Abraham — and  the  thing  for  which  the  Church  has  come 


41  o      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

to  the  Kingdom  is  delayed,  or  is  poorly  done,  or  if  well  done 
is  done  by  another  agency  which  for  the  time  more  truly  in- 
terprets the  spirit  of  the  Christ.  And  if  the  goal  is  far  off, 
and  the  progress  toward  it  in  the  Church  is  slow,  still  the  King- 
dom is  coming,  and  he  that  believeth  shall  not  make  haste. 
The  holy  city,  whose  pattern  and  ideal  is  coming  down  out 
of  heaven,  is  being  builded  slowly  but  stably  in  brick  and  stone 
and  human  institutions,  and  the  tabernacle  of  God  is  with  men 
in  the  Church.  Thus  shall  be  "  gathered  together  in  one  all 
things  in  Christ,  both  which  are  in  heaven  and  which  are  in 
earth." 


The  Place  of  the  Church  in  Modern 
Civilization 


The  Place  of  the  Church  in  Modern 
Civihzation 

BY 

The  Reverend  C.  R.  HENDERSON,  D.D. 

THE  student  of  society,  asked  to  estimate  the  value  of  the 
Church  as  he  would  that  of  any  other  institution,  may 
be  affected  by  the  bias  of  friendship  or  of  indifference  or  of 
hate.  The  present  writer  must  confess  at  once  his  partiality  for 
the  Church.  Those  who  feel  it  their  duty  to  hold  a  brief  for 
the  opposition  must  do  their  work,  and  the  more  freely  and 
openly  they  show  their  cards  the  sooner  will  the  answer  come. 
But  affection  has  some  advantages  over  hostility  and  indiffer- 
ence in  an  attempt  to  give  an  exposition  of  an  institution.  Only 
one  who  has  a  deep  care  for  religion  will  devote  adequate  time 
to  the  consideration  of  its  phenomena.  The  hand  is  more 
skilful  which  is  guided  by  love  and  obeys  its  behests.  Revela- 
tion of  spiritual  values  comes  in  through  the  eyes  of  sympathy. 
The  odium  anti-theologicmn,  as  Mr.  Spencer  has  said,  is  as 
evil  in  its  way  as  partisan  sectarianism.  Religion  must  be 
studied  from  the  inside.  It  is  not  worth  while  to  pass  the 
Louvre  or  Uffizi  gallery  after  a  long  and  costly  voyage  and 
return  home  without  entering  the  halls  where  hang  the  master- 
pieces of  the  painters.  The  pictures  are  on  the  inside,  and 
those  who  merely  pass  along  the  street  know  not  their  glory 
and  beauty.  Only  the  lovers  of  music  know  the  value  of  music. 
*'  Amateurs  "  are  they  called ;  and  to  loving  admirers  the  artists 
owe  their  power  to  exist  and  work  and  create. 

Only  the  pure  in  heart  see  God.  He  that  is  willing  to  do 
God's  will  has  entered  the  path  which  leads  to  knowledge.  No 
one  can  criticize  Christianity  except  the  Christian.  All  other 
criticism  is  external,  superficial,  dealing  with  accidents  and  not 
with  essences. 

413 


414      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

The  material  resources  and  cost  of  the  Church  can  be  ap- 
proximately set  down  in  terms  of  money.  The  financial  exhibit 
is  impressive  and  compels  attention,  even  of  enemies.  An  in- 
stitution which  can  show  in  the  United  States  165,177  organi- 
zations, 111,036  ministers,  and  20,612,806  communicants  and 
members,  cannot  be  ignored  by  the  worldly  statistician,  al- 
though he  may  be  inclined  to  regard  the  data  as  very  imperfect 
and  not  always  honourable  to  the  intelligence  and  honesty  of  the 
members  and  leaders.  An  institution  which  can  open  142,521 
houses  of  public  assembly,  with  a  seating  capacity  of  43,564,- 
863  is,  indeed,  a  light  set  upon  a  hill.  Religion  is  not  near  be- 
coming obsolete  when  it  can  command  the  use  of  property 
worth  $679,630,139,  the  result  of  the  gifts  of  belief  and  love, 
unconstrained  by  the  legal  power  of  the  tax  gatherers.  Similar 
statistics  might  be  gathered  from  a  wider  area ;  these  serve  the 
purpose  of  illustration. 

Dr.  Thomas  Chalmers  believed,  early  in  his  life  and  early 
in  this  century,  that  the  Church  must  be  supported  by  the  State 
because  religion,  unlike  commercial  products,  is  not  wanted 
and  must,  therefore,  be  upheld  by  the  strong  arm  of  law.  Be- 
fore he  died  he  had  grand  occasion  to  revise  his  fallacious  argu- 
ment, and  he  may  be  supposed  to  rejoice  in  the  success  of  the 
voluntary  principle  in  the  United  States,  where  it  has  been 
tried  without  the  hampering  bonds  of  tradition  and  custom. 
The  figures  cited  are  not  beyond  criticism,  and  our  informa- 
tion betrays  much  weakness  and  defect  in  consecration;  but 
even  as  they  stand  we  have  in  them  a  revelation  of  a  stupen- 
dous social  phenomenon  for  which  we  must,  as  social  students, 
give  an  account  and  which  deserves  our  study. 

The  characteristic  and  essential  contribution  of  the  Church 
to  civilization  is  its  religious  ministration.  Many  of  the  marks 
which  were  once  supposed  to  distinguish  man  from  other  ani- 
mals have  been  found  not  to  be  characteristic ;  but  certainly  re- 
ligion is  peculiar  to  humanity  as  it  is  practically  universal. 
That  which  marks  man  as  man  is  the  peculiar  province  of  the 


The  Church  in  Modern  Civilization        415 

Church.     It  honours  man  by  offering  a  form  of  satisfaction 
which  pays  homage  to  his  highest  nature  and  powers. 

To  the  sincere  believer  religion  is  a  good  beyond  question. 
It  is  a  state  of  his  consciousness;  it  is  to  his  soul  bread  and 
light  and  air.  He  cannot  state  his  valuation  in  money  terms, 
any  more  than  he  can  fix  a  price  upon  the  love  of  his  wife  and 
children.  Love  is  not  for  sale;  it  is  not  quoted  in  the  market 
lists.  But  no  goods  whose  prices  are  quoted  on  'change  would 
be  good  if  love  were  not. 


"The   light  of  a  bright  life  dies, 
When  love  is  done." 


The  estimate  which  sincere  believers  actually  set  upon  this 
highest  good  is  obscured  by  a  thousand  conflicting  elements. 
Millions  of  the  poor  find  in  the  hopes  and  encouragements 
of  their  faith  a  joy  and  satisfaction  to  which  their  narrow  and 
meagre  means  give  scant  possibilities  of  expression.  Only  the 
Lord,  sitting  over  against  the  sacred  treasury,  and  omniscient, 
could  discover  to  the  ages  the  secret  of  the  devotion  symbolized 
by  the  two  mites  which  the  poor  widow  cast  in,  while  the  purse- 
proud  looked  contempt.  Heaven  has  a  refined  calculus  for  the 
registration  of  the  recording  angel. 

On  the  other  hand  we  may  express  a  charitable  judgment  of 
the  inadequate  contributions  of  some  rich  Christians.  Surely 
they  value  religion  at  a  higher  rate  than  some  of  their  money 
gifts  would  suggest.  Then  we  cannot  estimate  the  religious 
satisfactions  of  rich  men  by  the  amount  of  their  contribu- 
tions to  the  Church,  because  all  that  one  does  in  Christ's  name, 
for  charity,  for  education,  for  patriotism,  for  the  community, 
may  be  an  evidence  of  the  gratitude  and  devotion  of  a  follower 
of  Christ.  The  preacher  is  sometimes  tempted  to  gauge  the  re- 
ligious consecration  of  wealthy  laymen  by  the  amounts  contrib- 
uted to  salaries  of  clergy,  Church  edifices,  missions  and  other 
ecclesiastical  causes.    This  ecclesiastical  and  professional  bias 


41 6      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

needs  correction ;  it  blinds  us  to  important  evidence  of  the  real 
appreciation  which  rich  men  may  feel  for  religion. 

The  man  of  classical  culture,  rather  ignorant  of  economics, 
is  tempted  to  join  the  unthinking  and  envious  throng  who 
damn  the  rich  for  being  successful  and  refuse  to  believe  that 
one  may  sometimes  do  the  greatest  good,  and  do  it  out  of 
genuine  purpose,  by  investing  in  and  directing  productive  en- 
terprise rather  than  by  bestowing  alms.  One  may  show  his 
faith  in  a  far  purer  and  more  useful  way  by  directing  wealth 
than  by  surrendering  it  to  less  efficient  hands.  A  rich  man 
finds  it  difficult  to  make  others  believe  that  he  is  in  business 
with  any  such  purpose.  Usually  he  does  not  claim  to  be  dom- 
inated by  philanthropy  and  religion.  But  this  consecration  of 
capital  as  well  as  of  alms  and  gifts  is  possible,  ought  to  be 
universal,  and  will  become  more  and  more  the  rule  as  we  m- 
sist  on  it  and  show  our  appreciation  of  it.  It  we  could  get  at 
the  real  heart  of  a  genuine  rich  Christian,  m  his  somewhat  iso- 
lated position,  we  might  often  find  more  of  the  spirit  of  the 
good  widow  than  is  generally  thought  possible.  Jesus  said  it 
was  impossible  for  men,  but  not  impossible  with  God,  to  make 
even  a  rich  man  show  his  love  of  God  by  his  personal  use  of 
wealth. 

It  is  open  to  the  sceptic  to  sneer  at  this  claim ;  easy  for  cyni- 
cism to  find  hypocrisy  everywhere.  It  is  open  to  the  agnostic  to 
question  the  subjective  estimate  of  the  personal  valuations  of 
religion.  The  caviller  may  admit  that  we  are  honest  but  mis- 
taken ;  that  religion,  as  a  sweet  delusion,  is  to  the  dreamer  all 
that  he  thinks  it  to  be, — while  he  dreams.  To  him,  the  il- 
luminated and  disillusioned,  the  Church  offers  nothing  but  vis- 
ions; nothing  but  unfounded  promises.  He  declares  that  we 
are  trying  to  cheat  him  out  of  the  pleasures  of  this  world  by 
offering  to  buy  them  all  up  with  checks  on  the  bank  of  heaven, 
checks  signed  and  endorsed  by  the  spectral  hands,  payable  at  an 
unknown  date  in  an  unknown  world. 

A  superficial  answer  to  this  cavil  would  be  that  our  delu- 
sions and  visions  are  very  pleasant  to  us,  that  we  cherish  them  as 


The  Church  in  Modern  Civilization 


417 


real,  and  that  we  do  not  thank  any  rude  person  who  interrupts 
our  dreams.  We  might,  in  a  moment  of  weakness,  claim 
rights  for  our  reveries  which  break  the  hard  routine  of  drudg- 
ing life  with  enjoyments  of  the  imagination.  But  a  rational 
Christian  will  refuse  to  be  content  in  this  lazy  attitude  of  re- 
pose. He  will  not  put  the  pangs  of  doubt  to  rest  with  logical 
opiates  and  sleep  out  the  years  of  self-deception.  A  comfor- 
table lie  is  no  solace  to  the  man  who  would  choose  to  perish 
forever  rather  than  devote  one  year  to  a  charming  falsehood. 

If  religion  is  false  the  Church  has  no  social  use.  It  is  a  thief 
and  a  robber.  There  are  without  it  institutions  of  justice,  of 
money-making,  road-building,  arts  and  science,  recreation  and 
amusement.  Even  charitable  relief  might  be  provided  by  the 
State.  The  sole  final  justification  for  a  Church  is  that  it  gives 
men  religion  and  that  religion  is  true.  Therefore  we  owe  it 
to  ourselves  and  society  to  prove  religion  to  be  based  on  reality. 
If  we  cannot  do  that  we  should  withdraw  our  finance  com- 
mittees and  turn  over  our  buildings  and  funds  to  valuable 
human  uses. 

The  books  on  apologetics,  with  their  array  of  evidences,  ex- 
ternal and  internal,  have  their  reason  for  being.  They  are  the 
answer  of  the  intellect  of  the  Church  to  the  demand  for  evi- 
dence. We  ask  for  money-service,  time,  energy ;  we  must  jus- 
tify this  claim  as  a  reasonable  service.  It  is  vital  that  this  issue 
shall  not  be  hidden  by  pious  exclamation.  If  the  Church  rests 
its  claim  primarily  on  its  educational,  economic  or  other  secular 
contributions  to  civilization  it  has  lowered  its  flag  and  con- 
fessed its  cause  to  be  lost. 

The  evidences  of  Christianity  are  not  all  in  the  books  of  the 
apologists.  They  must  be  in  life  before  men  can  recite  their 
history.  The  lives  of  Christians  are  the  living  epistles  which 
all  men  read  and  understand.  One  must  already  care  a  good 
deal  for  religion  before  he  can  be  induced  to  read  an  ordinary 
book  on  the  evidences,  in  these  busy  and  crowded  days. 

Here  the  human  services  of  the  Church  are  significant.  We 
dare  not  urge,  for  example,  that  our  philanthropies  and  our 


41 8       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

schools  establish  the  claim  of  the  Church  to  support.  It  is  not 
because  we  make  real  estate  bring  higher  prices  in  a  locality 
that  we  ask  speculators  to  assist  in  the  support  of  ministers. 
We  do  not  ask  help  for  foreign  missions  because  they  will  en- 
large markets  for  our  mills  and  diffuse  respect  for  our  flag. 
And  yet  all  such  services  are  evidences  of  Christianity;  they 
reveal  the  essence  of  the  divine  life ;  they  symbolize  the  love  of 
God  and  the  spirit  of  goodness.  Good  in  themselves,  they  con- 
vince the  doubter  that  they  are  signs  of  a  spring  of  deeper  good. 
The  cup  of  water  given  in  the  name  of  Christ  is  soon  drunk 
dry,  and  the  recipient  is  as  thirsty  as  before.  But  when  the 
cup  touched  his  parched  lips  and  the  name  of  Christ  was  spoken 
as  an  explanation  of  the  motive  in  the  act,  the  soul  of  the  thirsty 
man  made  an  eternal  acquaintance,  and  found  its  own  way  to 
a  well  of  living  water,  eternal  life.  This  is  the  true  mode  of 
making  the  argument  for  religion  by  works  done  in  His 
name. 

The  Church  is,  indeed,  a  powerful  economic  factor  and  con- 
tributor to  wealth.  It  enriches  men.  The  economists  discuss 
the  production  and  the  distribution  of  wealth.  Under  the  head 
of  production  they  assume  the  presence  of  wants  and  desires 
which  urge  men  to  industry.  The  queer  animal  once  called 
"  the  economic  man  ",  all  self  and  that  self  stomach,  does  not 
exist.  The  real  economic  man  works  to  satisfy  all  his  wants. 
If  he  is  a  miserable  primitive  man,  just  above  the  gorilla,  he 
may  be  satisfied  with  the  gratification  of  two  or  three  bodily 
appetites,  and  when  these  are  glutted  he  quits  labour.  Industry 
under  these  conditions  has  a  short-hour  day.  But  the  civilized 
man,  heir  of  classical  and  Christian  culture,  has  a  multitude  of 
wants,  and  he  is  impelled  to  work  early  and  late,  all  the  year 
through,  with  far-seeing  providence,  with  vast  schemes  and 
systems,  in  order  to  gain  the  means  of  satisfying  these  endless 
cravings.  Religion,  acting  through  the  Church,  awakens  the 
highest  wants,  stirs  intellect  and  heart,  asks  beauty  for  temple 
and  home,  creates  a  market  for  architects  and  painters  and 
poets  and  musicians,  excites  men  to  industry  by  appeals  to 


The  Church  in  Modern  Civilization        419 

every  capacity  of  his  nature.  Hence  the  influence  of  the 
Church  on  production  of  wealth. 

Christianity  profoundly  influences  the  distribution  of  wealth, 
and  again,  by  this  indirect  route,  promotes  production.  The 
doctrine  and  feeling  of  brotherhood  and  equality  have  grad- 
ually uprooted  slavery  and  even  made  all  society  feel  that  what 
the  ruler  and  the  rich  really  need  for  completeness  is  also  the 
right  of  the  peasant  and  mechanic.  The  common  man  is  ex- 
alted by  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  Christianity.  He  is  made 
to  feel  that  he  has  a  rightful  place,  and  not  as  a  suppliant,  at  the 
banquet  of  life.  The  product  of  industry  is  the  product  of  a 
cooperating  community.  It  belongs  to  all.  Before  trades 
unions  were  so  powerful  as  they  are  now,  and  before  the  wage 
workers  could  make  their  voice  heard  through  universal  suf- 
frage, Shaftesbury  and  Macaulay  appealed  to  these  religious 
doctrines,  and  asked  for  a  fairer  apportionment  of  worldly 
goods,  and  shorter  strain  of  wasting  and  exhausting  toil,  and 
not  altogether  in  vain. 

The  ancient  slave  received  nothing  but  his  subsistence  and  his 
all  belonged  to  the  master.  The  wage  worker  is  not  yet  at  the 
end  of  his  demands,  but  he  already  has  a  larger  share  of  the 
product  and  owns  himself  and  his  increasing  leisure.  And  as 
he  can  buy  more  he  can  spend  more.  His  larger  purchases 
open  new  factories,  mines  and  stores.  Having  more  education 
he  has  multiplied  desires.  Being  in  the  vast  majority  he  fur- 
nishes the  widest  market.  Productive  energies  are  set  free  and 
the  world  grows  richer.  Deep  down  in  the  whole  process  is  the 
awakened  and  erect  common  man,  with  his  finer  nature,  his 
willingness  and  ability  to  work  steadily  in  prospect  of  varied 
and  elevated  satisfactions.  The  Church  has  a  share  in  this  pro- 
cess and  its  results. 

In  this  entire  system  of  industry  order  is  assumed  to  be 
essential.  There  is  no  liberty  of  movement,  no  security  of 
life,  property  and  investment,  unless  the  respect  for  social  order 
is  deep  in  the  common  conscience.  Laws  are  things  of  straw 
unless  they  represent  the  convictions  of  the  people.     Where 


420      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

brigands  infest  the  roads,  or  debauched  legislatures  seek,  with 
shortened  vision,  to  cheat  their  creditors,  there  capital  is  timid 
and  the  founders  of  industry  are  paralyzed.  Texas  and  other 
Western  regions  owe  to  the  pioneer  missionaries  a  debt  beyond 
calculation.  The  border  ruffian  was  not  only  cowed  but  con- 
verted by  the  brave  preachers  of  righteousness. 

Among  soldiers,  sailors,  politicians  and  merchants  we  are 
hearing  more  than  formerly  of  our  national  duty  to  the  weaker 
races.  We  are  told  that  we  must  rouse  ourselves,  break  the 
barriers  of  nationality,  and  make  our  civilization  known  be- 
yond seas.  Cynicism  mocks  at  this  crusade  of  culture  carried 
on  with  pike  and  gun ;  foreigners  sneer  at  the  pretension  which 
seems  to  them  to  cover  the  mean  old  vice  of  greed.  Granting 
that  the  unworthy  forces  are  not  quite  extinct  and  that  com- 
mercial earth-hunger  may  account  for  some  of  the  new  interest 
in  cosmopolitan  civilization,  it  remains  true  that  there  is  an 
element  of  good  intention  in  the  talk.  But  the  idea  itself  is  not 
novel,  except  to  those  who  have  refused  to  listen  to  the  pleas  for 
foreign  missions.  This  whole  vocabulary  of  world-conquest 
has  been  familiar  in  the  Church  during  all  this  century.  There 
it  is  natural  and  absolutely  above  suspicion  of  sinister  purpose. 
There  it  is  certainly  pure  self-sacrifice.  There  is  room  for  dis- 
cussion and  even  honest  difference  of  judgment  in  relation  to 
conquest  of  weaker  races  by  force  of  arms;  there  is  no  room 
for  doubt  or  hesitation  about  the  value  and  duty  of  Christian 
education  and  evangelization.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Great 
Commission.  Commercial,  military  and  political  extension 
must  at  best  be  limited  in  area;  but  for  Christian  culture  the 
field  is  the  world. 

The  educational  function  of  the  Church  fills  a  chapter  in  the 
history  of  civilization.  Jesus  was  the  Teacher;  His  followers 
are  disciples;  His  Church  is  a  school.  The  very  genius  of 
Christianity  is  educational.  The  light  which  illumines  every 
man  arouses  the  intellect.  In  all  ages  the  clergy  have  been  cus- 
todians of  culture,  and  from  their  ranks  the  modern  profession 
of  teaching  has  been  evolved  by  specialization  and  differen- 


The  Church  in  Modern  Civilization        421 

tiation.  The  hood  and  the  gown  are  memorials  of  the  monastic 
origin  of  academic  dress,  and  they  remind  the  world  of  the  debt 
which  culture  owes  to  the  Church.  This  stream  of  religious 
culture  has  enriched  the  field  of  secular  education,  over-flowing 
the  banks  of  ecclesiastical  control.  The  public  school  has  gen- 
erally abolished  Bible  reading,  but  it  cannot  without  suicide 
expel  the  Word  as  it  is  incarnated  in  good  teachers.  The  lit- 
erature of  the  public  library,  charged  with  the  finest  expressions 
of  Christian  thought  and  ideal,  is  bringing  back  in  poem  and 
declamation,  the  sublime  expressions  of  the  faith.  If  a  window 
is  left  open  for  air  and  light  the  music  of  social  religion  floats 
inward  and  steals  its  way  to  the  heart.  Christianity  cannot  be 
excluded  from  the  public  schools. 

Volumes  have  been  written  to  illustrate  these  varied  and  im- 
portant ministries  of  Christianity  to  culture  and  amelioration 
of  the  lot  of  man  on  earth.  The  eloquent  pages  of  Storrs, 
Brace,  Dennis,  and  the  rich  treasures  of  the  literature  of  mis- 
sions might  furnish  illustrations  that  would  give  convincing 
power  to  the  suggestion  of  argument  here  indicated.  Every 
decade  of  missions  and  of  Christian  education  adds  substantial 
and  material  evidences  of  the  fruitfulness  of  the  Christian 
agencies  of  promoting  welfare.  The  force  is  not  near  to  ex- 
haustion but  promises  perennial  supplies ;  the  spring  draws  its 
pure  waters  from  mountain  heights  and  ocean  depths. 

But  we  must  return  a  moment  to  the  beginning  of  our  state- 
ment :  the  best  gift  of  the  Church  to  civilization  is  not  economic 
and  cultural  blessing;  and  the  best  gift  of  Christ  is  not  the 
Church  and  the  institutions  which  it  creates  or  uses  for  social 
betterment  in  the  lower  sense.  Thanks  unto  God  for  His  in- 
effable gift, — Himself.  The  bouquet  of  flowers  sent  to  the 
room  of  the  invalid  by  a  thoughtful  friend  is  worth  far  more 
than  the  florist  was  paid ;  the  petals  will  wither  and  decay ;  but 
the  friend  is  immortal  and  his  friendship  remains  forever,  a 
joy  and  a  solace. 


The   Adjustment   of   the   Church   of  the 
Future  to  the  Life  of  the  Future 


The  Adjustment  of  the  Church  of  the 
Future  to  the  Life  of  the  Future 

BY 

CHARLES  F.  THWING,  D.D  ,  LL.D. 

THE  Church  is  Christianity  incarnate.  Christianity  is  hu- 
manity living  in,  and  for,  and  by  Christ.  Christianity  is 
truth,  but  truth  means  a  mind  to  understand.  Christianity  is 
duty,  but  duty  means  a  doer.  Christianity  is  doctrine,  but  doc- 
trine implies  a  will  to  believe.  The  Church  is  a  religious,  an  ec- 
clesiastical person.  The  Church  is  therefore  to  adjust  itself  to 
truth,  to  duty,  to  doctrine.  The  Church  is  to  adjust  itself  to 
life.  The  Church  is  to  adjust  itself  to  the  future.  The  ques- 
tion, therefore,  is:  The  Adjustment  of  the  Church  of  the 
Future  to  the  Life  of  the  Future. 

The  Church  of  the  future  will  adjust  itself  to  the  material 
conditions  of  the  future.  The  present  age  is  a  material  age. 
The  future  age  is  also  to  be  material.  The  material  character 
arises  in  part  from  the  newness  of  the  country.  The  woods- 
man's axe  precedes  the  sculptor's  chisel.  Often  we  lament  that 
the  time  is  so  material.  We  regret  that  absorption  in  things  is 
so  deep.  We  should  not  regret :  we  should  not  lament.  The 
Church  should  find  its  mightiest  triumphs  in  such  a  time.  For 
to  the  Church,  as  it  stands  for  Christ  and  for  Christianity,  a 
material  age  turns.  A  material  age  is  restless;  Christianity 
stands  for  peace.  A  material  age  is  full  of  disappointment; 
Christianity  stands  for  hope  and  fulfilment.  A  material  age 
recognizes  the  brevity  of  its  own  duration,  the  lowness  of  its 
own  ideals,  its  powerlessness  to  satisfy  the  dearest  wishes  of  the 
human  heart.  Christianity  stands  for  the  infinite  and  the  per- 
manent satisfaction  of  life.  Lament  that  the  Church  is  flung 
into  a  material  time?  Nay,  rejoice!  As  from  the  crude  prod- 
ucts of  petroleum  are  made  the  brilliant  dyes,  rivaling  the 
colours  of  the  rainbow,  as  from  dark  caves  is  plucked  the  sun- 

4«5 


426     Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

shine  of  the  diamond,  so  from  the  hard  materialism  of  our 
time  is  to  come  forth  a  Christianity  more  vigorous,  more  spirit- 
ual, more  triumphant. 

To  this  fact  of  materialism  is  the  Church  to  adjust  itself. 
The  Church  is  to  give  up  no  one  of  its  doctrines.  She  will  still 
hold  the  faith  once,  once  for  all,  delivered  to  the  saints.  She 
will  not  surrender  one  of  her  wise  methods.  But  this  material- 
ism may  cause  her  to  hold  her  truths  in  different  relations.  The 
perspective  of  truth  will  change.  The  materialism  of  our 
time  demands  that  the  Church  be  a  working  Church,  that 
Christianity  be  a  very  practical  Christianity.  The  age  de- 
mands what  the  Church  can  do.  The  Church  will  write  not 
new  creeds,  but  will  inaugurate  new  methods.  The  Church 
will  add  not  new  intellectual  forces,  but  rather  will  add  a  new 
force  to  all  old  forces.  The  Church  will  develop  not  the  pray- 
er-meeting, but  the  city  mission.  It  will  offer,  not  mysticism, 
but  intense  practicalism.  Its  hero  is  not  Madame  Guyon,  but 
Clara  Barton  and  Florence  Nightingale.  Its  symbol  is  less 
the  golden  cross  flying  on  the  spire  of  a  building  than  the 
simple  red  cross  glowing  over  the  heart.  This  working  Church 
has  small  patience  with  feelings  as  tests  of  Christian  character. 
It  abominates  cant  phrases.  It  asks,  ''  What  are  you  doing  in 
Christ's  name?  "  It  fastens  its  eyes  more  on  the  words,  *'  He 
went  about  doing  good,"  than  on  the  words,  "  He  opened  His 
mouth  and  taught  them.'*  It  fixes  its  eye  on  the  Christ  going 
about  doing  good  rather  than  on  the  Christ  standing  resplend- 
ent upon  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration.  The  Church  adjust- 
ing itself  to  the  future  age  will  be  intensely,  mightily  practical. 

We  shall  get  a  new  conception  of  the  Christ,  of  Christianity, 
and  of  the  Church,  through  such  an  endeavour.  The  Church 
has  been  developed  more  on  its  philosophical,  doctrinal  side, 
than  on  its  practical.  Our  creeds  are  a  good  deal  better  than 
our  practice.  We  are  now  to  see  a  development  on  the  side  of 
life.  The  Church  coming  to  a  material  age  and  giving  it  of  its 
life  will  receive  a  clearer  thought  of  the  Christ,  more  real,  more 
vital,  more  personal. 


The  Adjustment  of  the  Church  427 

The  Church  of  the  future  is  also  to  adjust  itself  to  the  in- 
tellectual conditions  of  the  future.  These  intellectual  condi- 
tions represent,  for  our  present  purpose,  a  demand  that  the 
Church  shall  emphasize  the  reason  of  and  for  things.  The 
Church  must  stand  ready  to  answer  that  little,  that  infinite 
question,  ''  Why?  "  The  Church  is  most  happy  to  do  its  best 
to  answer  that  question.  The  Church  must  address  herself 
more  and  more  to  the  reason  of  men.  It  no  longer  bases  its 
claim  for  the  receiving  of  its  beliefs  upon  its  own  ipse  dixit. 
It  demands  that  the  ground  of  faith  be  examined.  It  asks  that 
truth  be  tested,  and  that  whatever  part  is  proven  false  be  flung 
aside.  It  believes  that  the  Bible  is  the  Book  of  God,  but  it  is 
eager  for  the  reasons  of  the  belief  to  be  declared.  It  believes 
the  doctrine  of  the  creed,  but  it  asks  that  each  soul  be  able  to 
say  "  credo  "  for  reasons  convincing  to  itself.  For,  Christian- 
ity is  according  to  reason.  Christianity  is  not  anti-reasonable ; 
it  is  not  opposed  to  the  fundamental  principles  of  thought. 
Christianity  is  super-reasonable ;  it  is  in  certain  respects  above 
reason;  it  is  divine.  Christianity  is  also  sub-reasonable;  it 
goes  below  the  ordinary  principles  of  the  human  mind;  it  is 
divine. 

The  Church,  in  addressing  the  reason,  is  not  to  make  undue 
demands.  It  is  to  respect  the  conditions  for  receiving  evi- 
dence, and  the  conditions  of  evidence  itself.  It  is  to  recognize 
that  the  evidence.  Biblical  and  rational,  for  certain  truths  is 
stronger  than  the  evidence  for  some  other  truths.  The  evi- 
dence for  the  being  of  a  God  is  stronger  than  the  evidence  for 
the  being  of  a  triune  God.  The  evidence  for  the  person  of  the 
Christ  on  the  earth  in  some  human  form  is  stronger  than  the 
evidence  for  the  presence  of  the  Christ  on  the  earth  having  a 
double  nature.  The  evidence  for  the  double  nature  of  Christ 
is  stronger  than  the  evidence  for  any  theory  of  future  punish- 
ment. Such  gradations  of  evidence  the  Church  has  not  always 
recognized.  Such  gradations  of  evidence  the  Church  does  not 
now  recognize  as  it  should,  but  the  Church  of  the  future,  with 
a  discrimination  keener,  a  philosophy  profounder,  and  a  loyalty 


428      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

to  the  Bible  no  less  loyal,  will  recognize  these  conditions  and 
these  limitations. 

The  Church  of  the  future  and  the  intellectual  conditions  of 
the  future  meet  in  their  closest  relationship  in  the  pulpit.  The 
pulpit  of  the  future  Church  must  be  a  great  pulpit.  Its  mes- 
sage is  to  be  addressed  to  the  reason  as  well  as  to  the  heart,  to 
the  conscience  as  well  as  to  the  will.  This  pulpit  will  be  broad 
without  being  superficial;  deep  without  being  narrow;  high 
without  losing  itself  in  clouds  of  philosophic  dreaming.  Its 
truths  will  be  more  intuitions  than  inductions  or  deductions. 
It  will  be  Biblical,  for  it  will  be  true ;  it  will  be  rational,  for  it 
will  be  addressed  to  rational  beings.  It  will  be  eloquent  with 
all  the  warmth  which  a  love  of  God  and  a  love  to  man  inspire, 
but  its  eloquence  will  be  touched  by  the  dry  light  of  truth  rather 
than  moved  by  the  heat  of  passion.  It  will  be  great  in  its 
themes.  Its  themes  will  be  the  themes  which  underlie  and  fill 
every  great  utterance,  whether  made  in  history,  or  song,  or 
story, — love,  self-sacrifice,  virtue,  bravery,  duty,  holiness,  faith, 
peace.  It  will  be  a  pulpit  as  diverse  in  the  forms  of  its  utter- 
ance as  the  character  and  conditions  which  it  addresses,  and  it 
will  adjust  itself  to  the  special  conditions  and  in  every  utterance 
and  through  every  message  will  be  heard  the  one  fundamental 
note  of  a  supreme  love  to  God  and  of  love  to  the  brotherhood 
of  man.  It  will  be  great  in  its  aims.  Its  aims  will  be  none 
other  than  the  highest  to  make  men  highest.  It  will  be  great 
in  its  conceptions.  Its  conception  of  man  will  be  that  man  is 
of  infinite  value.  No  increasing  power  of  the  book,  no  increas- 
ing prevalence  of  the  newspaper,  is  to  narrow  the  place  of  the 
pulpit.  No  decline  of  eloquence  in  the  senate  or  at  the  bar 
shall  promote  the  decline  of  its  persuasive,  living  speech.  It  is 
still  to  be  the  place  in  which  man  is  to  testify  to  the  glory  of 
the  service  of  God,  to  the  obligation  of  human  duty.  It  shall 
paint  the  wickedness  and  the  wretchedness  of  sin,  the  beauty 
of  holiness,  and  with  tongues  of  fire  call  upon  men  to  live  for 
God  and  to  die  in  the  grace  of  His  Son.     So  long  as  life  is  life, 


The  Adjustment  of  the  Church  429 

so  long  as  truth  is  truth,  so  long  will  life  and  truth  in  the  pulpit 
give  truth  and  life  to  men. 

The  adjustment  of  the  Church  of  the  future  to  the  intel- 
lectual conditions  of  the  future  will  promote  a  union  between 
ethics  and  Christian  doctrine.  The  history  of  the  divorce  of 
ethics  and  of  Christian  teaching  is  a  sad  chapter  in  the  his- 
tory of  both  ethics  and  Christianity.  The  science  of  ethics 
the  philosopher  has  developed,  but  he  has  too  often  developed 
it  without  reference  to  the  relations  divine  and  eternal.  Chris- 
tianity has  been  developed  into  creeds  and  formal  statements, 
but  these  creeds  and  statements  have  too  often  been  formed 
with  reference  to  the  other  world,  not  to  this.  Christianity  has 
been  saying,  ''  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart,  and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with 
all  thy  strength/'  but  it  has  sometimes  forgotten  to  add,  "  and 
thy  neighbour  as  thyself."  Ethics  has  declared,  "  Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself,"  but  it  too  often  has  forgotten  to 
command  supreme  love  to  the  Supreme.  The  Church  is  to  be 
a  Church  of  this  world  and  also  a  Church  of  the  other  world. 
It  is  to  be  a  Church  of  the  present  and  of  eternity.  It  is  to  be 
Christlike  in  its  comprehensiveness.  The  Church  is  to  make 
ethics  Christian.  The  Church  is  to  make  Christianity  ethical. 
The  Church  is  to  tell  men  that  righteousness  is  but  "  rights  " 
writ  large,  that  graciousness  of  man  to  man  is  but  grace  hu- 
manized, and  that  faithfulness  is  the  eldest  daughter  and  some- 
times the  beautiful  mother  of  faith.  Let  men  be  taught  by  the 
Church  that  the  man  who  is  most  in  the  world  is  the  most 
Christian,  and  that  the  man  who  has  most  of  the  spirit  of 
Christ  will  be  most  in  the  world.  Let  men  learn  that  the  steps 
on  the  stairway  of  the  right  slope  upward  in  both  night  and 
light  to  the  throne  of  God.  Let  men  know  that  the  Incarna- 
tion makes  the  simple  right  Christian.  Let  it  never  again  be 
possible  for  a  thinker,  aiming  at  truth,  to  say,  as  said  one  of 
the  great  thinkers  of  the  century;  "  If  to  hell  I  must  go  for 
doing  right,  then  to  hell  I  will  go."     No.     The  man  who  is 


430  Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century- 
doing  the  right  is  the  man  whom  Christ  takes  to  his  own  great 
heart  of  love,  to  His  own  great  conscience  of  supreme  de- 
votion to  the  right.  Thus  the  Church  of  the  future  may  min- 
ister to  the  intellectual  conditions  of  the  future  by  making 
ethics  Christian. 

The  Church  of  the  future  is  to  adjust  itself  to  the  social  con- 
ditions of  the  future.  This  is  the  most  important  of  all  these 
adjustments.  We  are  living  and  we  are  to  live  in  a  time  when 
the  foundations  of  human  society  are  to  be  tested.  Socially, 
is  the  family  to  remain  the  social  unit?  Industrially,  are  cap- 
ital and  labour  to  remain  as  armed  neutrals  ?  Economically,  is 
competition  to  remain  the  method  of  trade?  Is  the  present 
condition  of  human  society  sound  ?  Nature  represents  the  rule 
of  the  strongest.  The  fittest  survive.  The  unfittest  and  unfit 
die.  Does  the  phrase,  ''  To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given,  and  he 
shall  have  abundance,  but  from  him  that  hath  not  shall  be  taken 
away  even  that  which  he  hath,"  represent  what  is  and  what 
ought  not  to  be,  or  what  is  and  what  ought  to  be  ?  Is  modern 
society  founded  on  the  basis  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  ?  Are 
the  meek  inheriting  the  earth  ?  The  American  people  are  going 
through  a  transformation  from  a  small,  widely  scattered 
agricultural  people  of  similar  aims,  methods,  and  conditions, 
to  a  great  people,  crowded  into  towns,  having  diverse  employ- 
ments, having  aims,  methods,  and  conditions  very  unlike.  It 
is  no  wonder  that  we  hear  the  cry  of  poverty,  the  cry  of  suffer- 
ing childhood,  the  cry  of  wronged  innocence.  The  "  song  of 
the  shirt "  has  ceased  to  be  a  song  and  has  become  a  cry,  a 
moan  wrung  from  the  heart.  The  labourer  feels  that  he  be- 
comes labour  simply  and  his  manhood  becomes  less  than  his 
work;  his  soul  goes  into  a  spade.  The  hoe  owns  the  man 
rather  than  the  man  the  hoe.  The  capitalist  knows  that  he 
must  buy  labour  and  every  other  commodity  in  the  cheapest 
market  and  sell  his  product  in  the  highest.  AH  this  represents 
the  fields  of  the  modern  Church.  The  Church  has  converted 
the  individual.  Can  it  convert  society?  The  Church  has 
caused  private  trusts  to  be  well  administered.     Can  it  cause 


The  Adjustment  of  the  Church  431 

public  trusts  also  to  be  well  administered?  The  Church  has 
helped  poor  men.  Can  it  remove  poverty  and  the  causes  of 
poverty?  The  Church  has  been  conservative.  Can  it  become 
aggressive?  The  Church  has  been  led.  Can  it  become  a 
leader  ?  The  Church  has  been  and  is  a  great  social  force.  Can 
it  become  a  great  sociological  force?  The  members  of  the 
first  Church  at  Jerusalem  had  "  all  things  common."  Com- 
munism there  failed.  Can  the  modern  Church  be  fitted  to 
some  form  of  socialism  and  not  fail  ?  The  Church  has  been  at 
some  times  inclined  to  hold  itself  aloof  from  life.  So  far  as 
the  Church  has  been  remote  from  life,  so  far  has  it  been  power- 
less. The  Church  must  keep  itself  in  touch  with  life.  What- 
ever interests  man  cannot  be  foreign  to  the  Church.  The 
Church  may  or  may  not  approve  of  many  socialistic  move- 
ments. The  Church  may  or  may  not  approve  many  movements 
to  improve  society  through  the  statute-book.  But  the  Church 
must  know  these  movements.  The  Church  must  be  ready  to 
pluck  the  one  sweet  drop  of  truth  and  beauty  from  the  thorny- 
rose-bush  of  public  debate.  Emotional  extravagances,  intellec- 
tual eccentricities,  sensationalism,  emotionalism,  should  not 
prevent  the  Church  from  knowing  that  humanity  is  more  or 
less  expressive  in  its  feelings,  more  or  less  eccentric  in 
its  thoughts,  more  or  less  fond  of  receiving  and  of  giving  sen- 
sations. The  Church  should  take  humanity  as  it  is  and 
make  humanity  what  it  should  become.  An  age  which  sees  the 
Salvation  Army  going  on  its  triumphant  march  round  the 
world  should  not  fail  to  impress  the  Church  with  the  duty  of 
knowing  and  of  using  every  movement  of  the  age  for  the  im- 
pression of  human  kind  and  for  the  improving  of  human  kind 
by  any  agency,  which  may  impress  or  improve. 

"  New   occasions   teach   new   duties ; 
Time  makes  ancient  good  uncouth ; 
They  must  upward  still  and  onward, 
Who  would  keep  abreast  of  Truth." 

I  do  not  forget  that  this  adjustment  of  the  Church  to  the  ma- 
terial, the  intellectual,  and  the  social  conditions  of  the  future 


432      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

may  oblige  the  Church  to  alter  somewhat  its  own  constitution. 
Indeed,  the  Church  already  shows  its  capacity  for  this  adjust- 
ing of  itself  to  those  to  whom  it  is  to  minister.  For  no  less  than 
three  types  of  the  Church  are  now  emerging.  One,  the  Church 
of  the  family.  It  is  placed  in  the  midst  of  homes.  One  also, 
which  maybe  called  the  institutional  Church,  placed  in  the  midst 
of  a  neighbourhood  composed  partly  of  families  and  largely  of 
single  men  and  women  who  are  in  a  certain  way  homeless. 
One  also,  the  Evangelistic  Church,  placed  in  the  midst  of  great 
tides  of  population.  Each  of  these  Churches  has  its  means  and 
methods.  The  family  Church  consults  the  fitness  of  good  taste. 
Its  services  are  orderly  and  decorous ;  its  methods  are  stable  and 
conservative.  The  institutional  Church  employs  many  agencies 
in  carrying  on  its  work,  teaching  trades  and  arts,  seeking  to 
amuse  as  well  as  to  convert.  It  is  a  genuine  "  fisher  of  men," 
using  books  of  all  kinds  and  baits  of  all  sorts  in  this  holy  an- 
gling. The  evangelistic  Church  is  content  to  preach  the  gospel 
and  to  minister  to  individual  men.  Each  of  these  types  is  to  be 
found  in  every  well  equipped  city.  Each  of  these  types  has  its 
special  work  and  for  each  of  them  a  large  opportunity  is  wait- 
ing. The  Church  of  the  future  is  to  be  one  of  these  three 
types  or  a  combination  of  these  three  types  according  as  its 
special  constitution  can  best  serve  its  constituency. 

This  adjustment  will  give  to  the  Church  a  new  sense  of  life. 
Coming  into  life,  life  will  come  into  the  Church.  That  Church 
which  is  remote  from  life  is  a  Church  dying.  Its  temples  may 
be  splendid,  its  services  ornate,  its  wealth  great,  its  past  stored 
with  stories  of  prophets  and  martyrs,  its  palaces  hung  with  the 
glories  of  the  Old  Masters,  but  remote  from  present  life  that 
Church  is  dead,  thrice  dead.  But  the  Church  which  has  a  mes- 
sage for  men,  for  men  here  and  now,  a  message  of  hope,  for  the 
despairing,  a  message  of  guidance  for  the  lost,  a  message  of 
inspiration  for  the  careless,  a  message  of  love  for  the  indiffer- 
ent,— such  a  Church,  as  humanity  seems  to  come  into  it,  goes 
forth  to  humanity.  Let  us  never  forget  that  the  Christ  who 
came  to  humanity  came  into  humanity.     ''  He  became  man." 


The  Adjustment  of  the  Church  433 

It  is  also  to  be  said  that  this  adjustment  of  the  Church 
to  the  varying  conditions  will  give  to  us  great  denominations ; 
it  will  give  us  great  and  noble  divisions  of  the  Christian  forces. 
It  will  give  to  us  denominationalism  without  sectarianism. 
For  life  is  infinitely  diverse  and  the  Church  should  minister  to 
the  infinite  diversity.  The  monarchical  system  of  Roman 
Catholicism,  the  oligarchical  system  of  the  Episcopacy,  the  re- 
publican system  of  Presbyterianism,  the  democratic  system  of 
Congregationalism,  will  each  find  a  devout  acceptance.  The 
system  of  doctrine  which  begins  with  the  severity  of  God  will 
find  a  hearty  reception  in  minds  inclined  to  the  monarchical  sys- 
tem of  ecclesiastical  rule.  The  system  which  begins  with  the  au- 
thority of  the  human  will,  will  find  acceptance  with  those  who 
are  inclined  to  emphasize  the  republican  or  democratic  method. 
The  system  which  is  the  more  systematic  and  orderly  and  logi- 
cal will  appeal  the  more  strongly  to  minds  of  a  certain  type,  and 
a  system  which  is  not  systematic  but  a  series  of  actions,  which 
is  content  to  bind  Christ's  two  commandments  upon  its  brow, 
will  seem  to  minds  of  another  type  more  acceptable.  A  philos- 
ophy of  the  Holy  Spirit  will  be  to  some  helpful  and  to  some 
harmful.  A  service  composed  of  prayers  which  the  lips  of  saints 
have  said,  a  service  inlaid  with  psalms  and  hymns  which  mar- 
tyrs have  sung,  rich  in  historical  associations,  suggestive  of  the 
glories  of  a  noble  past,  will  be  to  some  more  pleasing;  but  a 
service  which  is  simple,  direct,  plain,  will  have  to  others  the 
richest  value.  The  appeal  of  the  Church  to  life  will  give  diver- 
sity in  unity,  and  also,  it  may  be  added,  unity  in  diversity. 

I  fear  that  I  may  have  given  the  impression  that  the  Church 
is  in  peril  of  breaking  into  fragments  through  this  bending  of 
itself  to  the  needs  of  men.  Someone  may  ask,  ''  Is  the  fable  of 
Osiris  to  be  repeated;  are  the  Christian  forces  again  to  be  scat- 
tered ?  "  Let  me  at  once  say ;  The  Church  is  one.  Christianity 
is  complete  and  whole.  The  Church  is  one,  but  the  Church  is 
great  in  power  and  large  in  relationships.  Truth  is  complete 
and  comprehensive;  but  because  it  is  so  comprehensive  it  will 
minister  to  diversity  of  condition  and  to  variety  of  need.     The 


434      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

Christ  is  unchanging,  and  the  unchanging  Christ  is  to  be 
preached  to  changing  man  under  constantly  changing  condi- 
tions. The  substance  of  the  gospel  lasts,  but  methods  change 
and  means  vary  as  conditions  are  altered.  This  universe  of 
ours  so  far  as  we  know  it,  is  subject  to  constant  change.  No 
two  tides  ever  sweep  up  the  beach  in  the  same  orderly  ripple,  no 
two  spring-times  dawn  in  the  same  form,  after  winter's  long 
night,  no  two  summer-tides  blush  toward  the  autumn  in  the 
same  tints  of  beauty;  but  the  great  earth  itself  still  swings  to 
and  fro,  jarless  and  noiseless.  The  great  sun  is  still  found  in 
his  appointed  place  at  the  proper  hour,  and  the  whole  universe 
moving  through  infinite  space  keeps  harmony  with  itself.  So 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  same,  "  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and 
forever."  So  the  Christianity  of  Christ  is  the  same  yesterday, 
to-day,  and  forever.  So  the  Church,  founded  by  the  Christ,  and 
by  Christianity,  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day  and  forever. 


The  Sabbatic  Principle  in  Modern  Society 


The  Sabbatic  Principle  in  Modern 

Society 

BY 

The  Reverend  ALBERT  E.  WAFFLE,  D.D. 

EVERY  age  has  its  peculiar  characteristics.  It  is  not  al- 
ways easy  to  define  and  describe  them,  for  human  nature 
is  always  the  same,  and  every  age  is,  in  some  respects,  like 
every  other.  And  in  other  respects  it  is  often  only  a  difference 
of  degrees.  For  example,  there  has  never  been  a  civilized 
country  in  which  love  of  money,  greed  for  gain,  was  not  a 
prominent  characteristic ;  but  it  has  not  been  the  predominating 
spirit  in  every  country  in  every  age.  In  Sparta  the  love  of 
military  glory  was  a  stronger  passion ;  among  the  Puritans  re- 
ligious zeal  overmastered  it.  There  is  always  a  probability  of 
making  a  mistake  in  stating  the  characteristics  of  an  age.  The 
ignorance  of  the  analyzer — his  inability  to  know  about  his  own 
age  as  compared  with  others — and  his  personal  bias  will  have 
their  effect  upon  his  judgment.  But  in  spite  of  these  difficul- 
ties, there  will  be  a  general  agreement  about  the  leading  char- 
acteristics of  this  age. 

It  is  an  age  of  intense  activity.  In  the  development  of  nat- 
ural resources  and  in  the  multitude  and  magnitude  of  the  enter- 
prises on  foot  man  has  never  before  displayed  such  mighty  and 
restless  energy.  In  manufactures,  in  mining,  in  agriculture, 
in  commerce,  in  building,  in  teaching  and  studying,  in  pur- 
veying to  the  love  of  pleasure,  and  in  other  pursuits  we  are  as 
busy  as  bees  and  ants  on  a  summer  day.  This  is  especially 
the  characteristic  of  European  and  American  life.  We  live 
at  fever  heat.  We  are  a  nation  of  "  hustlers,"  and  the  ability 
to  ''  hustle  "  is  the  talent  most  admired.  The  rush  and  roar  and 
clatter  of  city  life  is  appalling,  when  one  stops  long  enough  to 
contemplate  it.  Quickness  in  manufacture  and  speed  in  trans- 
portation are  the  first  considerations.    Even  our  pleasures  must 

437 


438      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

be  done  with  intensity  or  they  are  not  worth  while.  We  have 
little  respect  for  dignity,  repose  and  quiet  thoughtfulness,  but 
reserve  all  our  admiration  for  the  energy  and  activity  which 
bring  things  to  pass. 

It  is  an  age  of  practical  materialism.  It  would  be  absurd  in 
the  face  of  patent  facts  to  assert  that  our  age  ignores  the  moral 
and  spiritual.  Never  before  was  better  effort  made  for  world- 
wide evangelization ;  never  was  money  more  freely  and  lavishly 
given  for  the  support  of  Churches  and  schools ;  never  did  states 
give  so  much  attention  to  the  education  of  the  people;  never 
were  so  many  books  and  periodicals  printed  and  read.  Never- 
theless, it  remains  true  that  devotion  to  material  good  is  the 
most  prominent  characteristic  of  our  age.  The  prodigious 
energy  which  the  age  puts  forth  is  incited  to  activity  mainly 
by  the  hope  of  material  gains.  Our  boast  is  of  our  inventions, 
our  vast  wealth  and  resources,  our  cities,  farms,  machinery,  fac- 
tories, railroads  and  ships,  and  our  luxuries  and  comforts 
more  than  of  fine  characters  and  of  noble  productions  in  liter- 
ature and  art.  There  is  a  general  demand  that  education  shall 
be  ''  practical ", — that  is,  that  it  shall  fit  men  and  women  to 
earn  more  money, — and  study  of  the  natural  sciences  and  of 
engineering  crowds  out  the  studies  that  make  for  character  and 
culture.  The  money-power  is  largely  dominant  in  our  Churches 
and  Christian  missions  commend  themselves  to  many  minds 
mainly  on  the  ground  that  they  promote  discovery  and  trade. 
Men  contribute  to  build  houses  of  worship  because  their  pres- 
ence will  enhance  the  value  of  real-estate.  Everywhere,  on  the 
streets,  in  hotel  lobbies,  on  railway  cars,  the  conversation 
among  men  is  about  business  and  the  different  ways  of  making 
money.  In  our  own  country  for  many  years  political  stump- 
orators  have  appealed  only  to  the  pockets  of  the  people,  and 
have  asked  for  votes  on  the  ground  that  their  party  in  power 
would  improve  the  financial  conditions,  and  the  voters  have  not 
been  insulted  by  the  assumption  that  they  have  no  moral  sen- 
sibility and  no  convictions.  Ask  if  a  man  is  ''  good  "  and  the 
answer  relates  wholly  to  his  financial  standing.     The  ideal  of 


The  Sabbatic  Principle  in  Modern  Society    439 

success  and  prosperity  is  that  we  shall  have  money  for  our 
comforts,  luxuries,  pleasures  and  pride. 

It  is  an  age  of  religions  doubt.  Dr.  Van  Dyke  publishes  a 
book  of  lectures  on  The  Gospel  for  an  Age  of  Doubt.  That 
characterization  of  the  present  age  is  certainly  not  unfair. 
Since  human  history  began  no  age  has  been  so  marked  by  un- 
belief in  the  supernatural.  That  statement  relates  in  no  way 
to  the  acceptance  or  rejection  of  Christianity^  but  solely  to  faith 
or  unbelief  in  some  power  above  nature  and  in  a  life  beyond 
the  grave.  The  progress  of  scientific  knowledge  dispels  super- 
stition; the  old  gods  depart  from  the  stage  of  human  thought; 
but  natural  science  does  not,  as  yet,  foster  faith  in  God  and  in 
the  spiritual  life.  The  materialism  of  the  age  is  both  a  sign 
and  a  cause  of  the  decay  of  faith.  People  who  believe  strongly 
in  God  will  not  become  absorbed  in  the  pursuit  of  material  ad- 
vantages. On  the  other  hand  people  who  devote  themselves 
to  that  pursuit  are  almost  certain  to  forget  the  existence  and 
the  moral  government  of  God.  The  boastful  scientific  spirit  of 
our  age  produces  its  natural  fruit  in  agnosticism.  The  more 
men  pride  themselves  on  knowing  the  present  world,  the  more 
willing  they  are  to  confess  that  they  know  nothing  of  the  world 
to  come.  Of  course,  if  anything  could  be  known  they  would 
know  it,  but  nothing  can  be  known.  The  tendency  of  practical 
materialism,  of  devotion  to  material  good,  is  to  crowd  out  of 
mind  and  heart  all  thoughts  of  God  and  of  the  spiritual  life. 
Of  the  vast  majority  of  the  people  in  the  present  age,  it  may  be 
truly  said  that  "  God  is  not  in  all  their  thoughts."  They  have 
ignored  Him  and  His  claims,  and  He  has  left  them  to  their 
idols.  It  is  inevitable  that  such  habits  of  life  should  be  pro- 
ductive of  religious  doubt. 

It  is  an  age  of  lawlessness.  This  statement  will  not  apply  to 
every  country ;  it  has  a  special  application  to  our  own.  Neither 
is  it  meant  that  there  is  among  us  a  general  disregard  of  civil 
law,  and  that  we  are  given  over  to  anarchy  and  disorder.  The 
reference  is  to  respect  for  divine  law  and  those  phases  of  con- 
duct which  grow  out  of  it. 


440      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

The  causes  of  this  lawlessness  are  not  difficult  to  discover. 
A  prominent  characteristic  of  our  age  is  the  tendency  to  exag- 
gerate individualism.  We  have  carried  this  so  far  that  the 
average  man  has  come  to  feel  that  he  is  a  law  unto  himself. 
Ours  is  an  age  in  which  the  individual  has  a  great  conceit  of 
himself.  He  has  little  reverence  for  God,  little  respect  for 
rightful  authority,  and  little  regard  for  the  rights  of  others. 
Practical  materialism  and  religious  doubt  have  also  helped  to 
make  ours  an  age  of  lawlessness. 

This  spirit  manifests  itself  in  the  common  disregard  of 
parental  authority  on  which  every  one  comments  but  for 
which  no  one  seems  able  to  suggest  a  remedy;  in  the  evident 
tendency  to  substitute  sentiment  and  personal  preference  for 
obedience  to  Divine  law ;  in  the  impatience  of  all  restraint  in  the 
Churches ;  and  in  the  general  feeling  that  one  should  be  allowed 
to  live  out  his  own  nature,  following  his  own  impulses  and  pas- 
sions. 

In  such  an  age  as  this  one  would  not  expect  to  find  much 
regard  for  the  Sabbath.  The  spirit  of  an  age  affects  all  of  its 
institutions,  and  unless  one  be  illogical  enough  to  argue  that 
what  works  against  a  thing  will  promote  it,  he  would  look  for 
a  decline  of  Sabbath-observance  in  this  age.  The  restless  ac- 
tivity of  the  age  is  against  it.  Men  claim  that  they  have  not 
time  for  it;  that  it  is  too  much  to  expect  that  for  one-seventh 
of  the  time  they  will  abstain  from  the  absorbing  pursuit  of 
money-making.  The  practical  materialism  of  the  age  is  against 
it.  The  proper  observance  of  the  Sabbath  pre-supposes  some 
interest  in  spiritual  things.  It  demands  a  pause  from  secular 
activities  in  order  that  attention  may  be  given  to  the  interests 
of  the  soul.  It  implies  that  after  six  days  have  been  devoted 
to  the  interests  of  the  present  life  one  shall  be  taken  to  consider 
the  future  life.  To  men  of  a  secular  spirit  this  will  seem  like 
a  waste  of  time, — like  devoting  a  day  to  the  cultivation  of 
dreams  and  the  pursuit  of  shadows.  Religious  doubt  is  against 
it.  The  Sabbath  roots  itself  in  the  idea  that  there  is  a  God 
who  has  been  immanent  and  regnant  in  the  affairs  of  men.    In 


The  Sabbatic  Principle  in  Modern  Society    441 

its  relation  to  the  past,  it  is  a  memorial  of  supernatural  events ; 
in  its  relation  to  the  future,  it  points  to  a  supernatural  life. 
Men  of  doubt  may  want  it  for  a  holiday,  but  they  will  see  no 
significance  in  it  as  a  holy  day.  Lawlessness  is  against  it.  The 
observance  of  the  Sabbath  rests  upon  a  Divine  command.  It 
involves  restraints.  It  bids  men  pause  in  the  pursuit  of  money. 
It  bars  them  from  indulgence  in  sensuous  or  worldly  pleasures. 
It  constrains  them  to  bring  their  minds  and  hearts  to  the  con- 
sideration of  religious  truths.  It  insists  upon  the  performance 
of  duties  which  are  not  pleasant  to  the  natural  heart.  Against 
such  restraints  a  lawless  age  revolts. 

And  yet,  this  is  just  the  kind  of  an  age  that  most  needs  the 
Sabbath.  The  perversity  of  human  nature  is  such  that  men  al- 
ways despise  and  reject  their  greatest  blessings,  the  things  of 
which  they  stand  in  the  greatest  need.  They  stoned  the  proph- 
ets and  crucified  the  Saviour.  Man  has  always  needed  the  Sab- 
bath. It  makes  provision  for  some  of  the  deepest  needs  of  his 
nature.  ''  The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man."  Its  establish- 
ment by  Divine  authority  was  a  benevolent  act.  It  is  among 
the  good  gifts  which  God  has  bestowed  in  such  abundance  upon 
the  race.  It  was  not  intended  to  be  a  restriction  or  a  burden, 
but  a  blessing.  That  "  the  Sabbath  was  made  for  man  "  does 
not  imply  that  he  is  to  take  one  day  in  seven  and  use  it  ac- 
cording to  his  own  pleasure.  If  he  receives  the  gift  at  all,  he 
must  receive  it  as  God  gives  it.  If  the  institution  is  to  be  a 
blessing  to  him  he  must  suffer  himself  to  be  blessed.  Man's 
need  is  not  met  in  a  Sabbath  which  he  adjusts  to  his  own  de- 
sires or  observes  according  to  his  own  opinions  of  what  is  best. 
The  same  Lord  who  made  the  Sabbath  made  man,  and  the  two 
are  fitted  to  each  other.  The  reception  of  the  gift  implies  sub- 
mission to  the  authority  of  him  who  bestows  it. 

I  have  said  that  man  has  always  needed  the  Sabbath ;  but  in 
this  age  he  specially  needs  it — needs  it  more  than  ever  before. 
The  very  characteristics  of  the  age  which  incline  him  to  neglect 
or  misuse  it,  but  increase  his  need  of  observing  it  with  the 
greater  strictness.    He  needs  the  Sabbath  for  rest.    The  strain, 


442      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

and  fret,  and  worry,  and  competition  of  modern  life  make  it 
especially  imperative  that  one  day  in  seven  we  should  be  free 
from  all  secular  activities  and  worldly  burdens.  The  rush  and 
fever  of  present  day  activities  will  soon  destroy  us  unless  we 
preserve  the  regular  rest-day.  It  has  been  proved  by  exper- 
ience that  among  an  active  and  industrious  people  the  weekly 
rest  is  essential  to  the  preservation  of  health  and  to  the  greatest 
accomplishment.  Man  does  better  work,  lives  longer  and  has 
better  health  working  six  days  in  seven  than  when  he  works 
every  day.  The  need  is  intensified  as  the  activities  of  life  be- 
come more  intense. 

In  an  age  of  practical  materialism,  man  needs  the  Sabbath 
to  remind  him  of  God  and  of  spiritual  realities.  The  original 
purpose  of  the  Sabath  was  to  remind  man  that  there  is  a  God 
who  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth  and  rules  over  them. 
To  the  Jews  it  was  also  a  memorial  of  their  deliverance  from 
Egypt  by  the  power  of  Jehovah.  Among  Christians  it  espe- 
cially commemorates  redemption  as  consummated  in  the  resur- 
rection of  Christ.  But  in  any  case  it  is  a  reminder  of  God. 
When  those  who  revere  Him  pause  in  their  work  and 
Church-bells  ring,  and  the  people  gather  in  their  houses  of  wor- 
ship, the  world  is  reminded,  as  it  could  be  in  no  other  way,  of 
the  Creator  and  Redeemer.  The  Sabbath  thus  stands  as  a  bul- 
wark against  the  strong  and  ruinous  tendency  of  a  materialistic 
age  to  forget  God.  It  is  certainly  a  ruinous  tendency.  "  The 
wicked  shall  be  turned  into  hell,  and  the  nations  that  forget 
God." 

Man  needs  the  Sabbath  for  religious  culture.  If  he  for- 
gets God,  he  will  also  forget  the  interests  of  his  own  spiritual 
nature.  So  far  as  the  present  age  is  not  materialistic,  it  is  in- 
tellectual. Reverence  decays,  religious  fervor  is  despised,  the 
Bible  is  studied  as  literature,  preaching  must  be  intellectual  or 
it  will  not  attract  hearers;  meanwhile  spirituality  shrinks  and 
shrivels.  Faith,  power  of  vision,  spiritual  insight,  communion 
with  God,  recognized  answers  to  prayers,  conscious  peace,  the 
joy  of  the  Lord  are  unheeded  by  the  mass  of  professing  Chris- 


The  Sabbatic  Principle  in  Modern  Society    443 

tians,  to  say  nothing  of  the  world,  or  are  thought  of  as  the 
vagaries  of  wild  fanatics  or  mystical  enthusiasts.  The  Sabbath 
rightly  observed,  used  as  a  day  of  worship  and  religious  medi- 
tation and  prayer,  will  be  a  means  of  cultivating  man's  re- 
ligious nature.  Thus  observed  it  will  be  an  antidote  to  doubt 
and  the  promoter  of  faith. 

Man  needs  the  Sabbath  as  a  cure  for  lawlessness.  One  day 
in  seven  he  needs  to  be  reminded  that  he  has  obligations  and 
duties  as  well  as  rights  and  privileges.  Remember,  says  the 
law,  that  the  Sabbath  is  to  be  kept  by  *'  not  doing  thine  own 
ways,  nor  finding  thine  own  pleasure,  nor  speaking  thine  own 
words."  Such  restraints  are  certainly  good  for  men  in  an  age 
of  self-conceit,  arrogance,  and  headlong  disregard  of  any  law 
higher  than  one's  own  inclinations. 

It  may  be  objected  that  in  basing  the  claims  of  the  Sabbath 
upon  man's  needs  it  is  placed  upon  a  low  foundation.  But  this 
was  the  method  followed  by  our  Lord  when  he  said  "  The  Sab- 
bath was  made  for  man ;  not  man  for  the  Sabbath."  Moreover, 
it  is  the  claim  most  likely  to  be  heeded.  If  men  can  be  con- 
vinced that  strict  observance  of  the  Sabbath  is  for  their  own 
good,  they  will  regard  it. 

It  is  argued  that  in  our  day  man  needs  a  modified  Sabbath. 
There  is  a  certain  amount  of  truth  in  the  contention.  Un- 
doubtedly the  Christian  Sabbath  is,  in  important  respects, 
diflFerent  from  the  Jewish.  Contingencies  arise  out  of  the 
methods  of  modern  life  in  which  it  may  be  difficult  or  quite 
impossible  to  observe  the  Sabbath  as  our  forefathers  did,  or 
even  according  to  an  ideal  standard.  But  plainly  it  is  not  for 
man  to  modify  the  Sabbath  to  suit  his  own  desires  or  conven- 
iences. That  is  the  tendency  of  our  times  even  with  those  who 
have  some  regard  for  the  Sabbath.  It  is  a  dangerous  tendency. 
It  is  our  business  rather  to  adjust  ourselves  to  the  law  of  God. 
There  may  be  questions  of  interpretation  and  application  which 
cannot  be  settled  off-hand.  But  those  who  have  teachable  and 
obedient  spirits  need  not  experience  serious  difficulty  in  learn- 
ing the  mind  of  Christ.     He  has  claims  which  must  be  re- 


444     Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

spected.    If  we  disregard  them,  the  result  will  be  our  own  un- 
doing. 

The  obvious  conclusion  of  this  brief  discussion  is  that  there 
is  in  our  times  an  imperative  demand  for  strict  Sabbath  ob- 
servance. Christian  people  should  give  special  heed  to  its  re- 
quirements. Instead  of  relaxing  their  observance  of  it  in  def- 
erence to  the  spirit  of  the  times,  they  should  be  more  than 
usually  careful.  The  Sabbath  was  never  in  such  danger;  the 
Sabbath  was  never  so  much  needed.  Who  shall  rescue  it  from 
the  danger,  who  shall  conserve  and  foster  this  institution  so 
fraught  with  blessingfs  to  humanity,  if  not  the  people  of  God  ? 


Revivals  in  the  Light  of  the  Present  Day 


Revivals  in  the  Light  of  the  Present 

Day 

BY 

The  Reverend  GEORGE  A.    HILTON 

THROUGH  over-wrought  imagination,  and  defective  con- 
ception, the  actual  meaning  of  a  Revival  has  almost  dis- 
appeared. '*  The  thought  of  foolishness  is  sin,"  and  sin  means 
death  to  right  thought  as  it  does  to  all  else  it  touches.  The 
wages  of  sin  is  death  " — death  to  all  righteousness,  includ- 
ing righteous  thought.  The  subject  of  revivals  is  in  no  sense 
exempt  from  foolish  thought.  A  man  supposedly  drowned  is 
frequently  resuscitated  if  heroic  remedies  are  applied  early 
enough.  Thus  a  man,  insensible  to  and  apparently  dead  in  sin, 
if  brought  within  the  reviving  range  of  God's  power,  through 
the  preaching  of  the  word  and  the  quickening  influence  of  the 
Spirit's  presence,  is  awakened  from  the  sleep  of  death;  the 
deadly  opiate  of  sin  finds  its  antidote — "  old  things  are  passed 
away  "  and  "  all  things  are  become  new  ". 

As  there  is  joy  in  the  home  when  the  new  babe  is  born,  so 
there  is  joy,  not  only  upon  earth,  but  "  among  the  angels  of 
heaven  ",  when  a  soul  is  born.  Sometimes  joy  is  excessive, 
and  exciting,  and  if  there  is  anything  on  earth  that  ought  to 
produce  excitement,  it  is  the  bringing  to  life  of  a  dead  soul. 
In  many  minds  the  great  exhilaration  accompanying  some  con- 
versions is  mistaken  for  the  conversion  itself,  and  hence  a  re- 
vival season  has  by  many  thoughtless  ones  been  regarded  as  a 
time  of  fanatical  excitement  and  emotional  excess — and  con- 
sequently shunned. 

The  history  of  the  Church  is  a  history  of  revival.  From  the 
beginning  the  wandering  mind  of  sin  has  been  drawn  by  re- 
vival from  its  spiritual  paralysis  to  the  Church  and  the  objects 
for  which  it  was  established.  The  history  of  revival  seasons  has 
been  too  ably  and  exhaustively  recounted  to  need  any  repeti- 

447 


448      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

tion  here.  All  along  the  line  stands  the  monumental  work  of 
revival,  and  blessing  through  revival.  The  work  of  David, 
jchoshaphat,  Hezekiah,  Joshua,  Ezra,  The  Disciples,  Luther, 
Bunyan,  Owen,  Baxter,  Wycliffe,  and  later  Wesley,  Edwards, 
Whitefield,  Porteus,  Fuller,  Hill,  Finney  and  so  on  until  this 
day.  The  *'  Hand  Book  of  Revivals  ",  by  Henry  C.  Fish, 
D.D.,  deals  thoroughly  with  the  periods  of  revivals. 

The  very  nature  and  environment  of  man  demand  seasons  of 
revival.  The  human  nature  constantly  seeks  for  that  which 
will  supply  human  needs  and  desires.  The  human  nature 
craves  that  which  will  give  physical  comfort,  pleasure,  peace. 
They  are  sought  for  through  channels  of  human  organization 
and  perpetuation.  The  pressing  necessities  of  temporal  life, 
must  be  supplied.  The  absorbing  business  of  life  is  to  sustain 
life  in  its  physical  nature.  The  mind  is  active,  and  frequently 
over-active,  in  the  great  study  of  how  to  live.  The  daily  life 
becomes  for  the  masses  a  tread-mill  grind  for  existence,  and 
its  thoughts  are  in  but  one  direction.  The  natural  man  seeks 
first  the  needs  and  joys  of  temporal  life,  not  the  ''  kingdom  of 
God  ".  "  That  the  just  shall  live  by  faith  ",  has  no  practical 
value  to  the  world.  That  "  Godliness  is  profitable  unto  all 
things  ",  including  business  and  pleasure,  is  an  unlearned  les- 
son. 

Man  cannot  see  faith,  and  as  faith  has  no  apparent  com- 
mercial value,  he  gives  no  consideration  to  the  things  that 
"  shall  not  pass  away  ".  Humanly  speaking,  *'  Business  is 
business  ".  No  business  means  no  bread.  The  schools  of  this 
day  have  not  taught  that  ''  man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone  ". 
This  is  a  day  of  concentration,  concentration  of  activity, 
worldly  thought,  business,  sin,  capital,  selfishness,  and  covet- 
ousness :  but  not  of  righteousness.  It  is  a  day  of  startling  events, 
in  war,  in  discovery,  invention,  in  everything  that  appeals  to 
the  mind  simply  human.  Few  things  old  or  ordinary  arrest 
the  attention.  Somethmg  more  than  ordinary  is  necessary  to 
head  ofT  the  on-rushing  tide  of  humanity,  and  bring  it  up  to 
the  dead-line  of  thought,  regarding  spiritual  matters  and  the 


Revivals  in  the  Light  of  the  Present  Day    449 

things  of  eternity.  Concentration  of  prayer,  burden  for  lost 
souls,  unselfishness,  sacrificing  effort,  real  love  for  our  neigh- 
bor, intensified  Christ-life,  more  love  for  the  upbuilding  of  the 
Heavenly  Kingdom,  rather  than  denominations,  will  result  in 
genuine  revival.  The  genuine  is  never  mistaken  for  the  arti- 
ficial, even  by  the  world.  It  is  this  genuine  revival  that  the  op- 
pressed of  humanity  is  suffering  for  to-day. 

Referring  to  a  revival  in  a  Canadian  town  six  years  ago, 
where  in  three  weeks,  over  six  hundred  souls  were  brought  to 
a  saving  knowledge  of  Christ,  a  secular  paper  of  the  town 
says, — 

"  The  union  of  the  ministers  and  churches  excited  a  moral 
force  of  great  magnitude  on  the  public  conscience.  If  in  noth- 
ing else,  the  moral  value  of  this  movement  as  an  object  lesson, 
teaching  the  exceeding  worth  of  co-operation  in  Christian  work 
by  all  the  churches,  is  beyond  computation.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  many  have  been  savingly  impressed  in  the  recent  move- 
ment zvho  could  not  have  been  inHuenced  but  by  the  spectacle  of 
earnest  men  of  all  churches  uniting  as  if  one  family  in  the 
effort." 

Just  so  long  as  the  potent  agencies  of  evil  multiply  as  they 
do  in  this  day,  to  the  promotion  of  sin  in  the  evil  heart ;  so  long 
as  the  enticing  allurements  of  the  world  continue  to  enfeeble 
the  Church :  just  so  long  will  revivals  be  necessary :  and  never 
in  the  history  of  the  Church,  so  necessary  as  in  this  opening  of 
a  new  century. 

One  of  the  agencies  operating  against  the  successful  in- 
gathering of  souls  is  the  adherence  to  set  methods  for  reaching 
those  interested, — methods  used  because  once  used  with  suc- 
cess. Any  reasonable  method  for  reaching  the  souls  of  men  is 
justifiable;  for  nothing  weighs  with  God  as  does  the  soul  of 
man,  and  it  is  unwise  for  the  soul-winner  to  be  tied  down  to 
any  set  form,  simply  because  one  is  used  to  it.  The  Spirit-led 
worker  must  be  free  from  conventional  ways  and  means,  that 
the  Holy  Spirit,  and  not  habit,  may  lead.  It  is  a  sad  but  in- 
disputable fact,  that  the  Church  has  not  kept  pace  with  the 


45 o      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

world  in  progressive  ways  and  means,  to  accomplish  its  great 
work;  and  God  has  therefore  set  His  seal  to  agencies  without 
the  organized  Church  to  seek  and  to  find  the  lost.  Notably 
does  this  apply  to  the  Salvation  Army,  and  Gospel  Missions. 
It  is  singular  that  the  Church  has  been  so  long  in  recognizing 
that  something  is  wrong  with  present  Church  methods  for  win- 
ning souls. 

The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  a  denomination,  posses- 
sing in  the  past,  the  revival  spirit  to  greater  extent  than  any 
other,  is  at  last  awakening  to  the  fact,  as  set  forth  in  the  fol- 
lowing utterance  of  the  committee  appointed  by  the  Board  of 
Bishops : — "  To-day  our  Methodism  confronts  a  serious  situa- 
tion. Our  statistics  for  the  last  year  show  a  decrease  in  the 
number  of  our  members.  Year  before  last  our  advance  was 
checked.  Last  year  our  advance-column  has  been  forced  back 
a  little.  The  lost  ground  is  paved  with  the  dead.  We  are  sur- 
rounded by  powerful  enemies.  The  attack  is  on  every  side. 
It  is  high  time  for  every  Methodist  to  take  himself  or  herself 
to  prayer,  to  call  mightily  on  God  for  help." 

It  is  also  true  beyond  question,  that  more  effort  has  been  put 
forth  in  the  building  of  Church  edifices,  than  in  building  up 
souls  for  God's  Kingdom.  Costly  edifices  have  been  multiplied, 
monuments  of  stone  and  brick,  frequently  only  pride-stimula- 
tors, while  the  greater  work  of  securing  through  an  equal  effort, 
monuments  of  God's  grace,  has  been  neglected.  The  Comp- 
troller of  New  York  City,  an  honored  member  of  the  M.  E. 
Church,  has  sounded  a  true  note, — "  If  the  Churches  are  to  be 
successful  in  raising  the  twentieth  century  offering,  to  my  mind 
they  must  convince  the  people  that  the  money  will  be  used  to 
the  best  possible  effect.  I  believe  the  great  masses  of  the  people 
in  our  great  cities  are  away  from  the  Churches  simply  because 
the  Churches  are  away  from  them.  It  is  a  waste  of  money  to 
build  a  two-hundred-thousand-dollar  Church  and  then  use  it 
only  once  or  twice  a  week.  These  immense  auditoriums  that  we 
now  own  should  be  thrown  open  for  educational  as  well  as  re- 


Revivals  in  the  Light  of  the  Present  Day   451 

ligious  teaching.  There  should  be  libraries  connected  with  every 
Church,  and  certain  educational  work  should  be  started." 

This  is  a  bugle  blast  in  the  right  direction.  Above  all  other 
educational  work  to  be  done  by  the  Church  is  Bible  education. 
The  ignorance  that  exists  regarding  the  Word  of  God  by 
those  occupying  Church  pews  is  shameful  and  sinful.  The 
soul  is  starved  and  the  Church  weakens  and  dies.  "  Study  to 
show  thyself  approved  unto  God,  a  workman  that  needeth  not 
to  be  ashamed  ".  There  is  much  that  the  Christian  Church 
should  be  ashamed  of  to-day^  and  it  comes  through  lack  of 
study.  Yet  it  is  sad  that  not  more  shame  is  felt  at  conditions 
so  brought  about.  Much  study  is  given  to  the  most  approved 
methods  of  promoting  worldly  interests,  and  we  are  justly 
proud  of  our  educational  systems  for  promoting  mental  and 
physical  growth.  But  what  a  lack  of  spiritual  education. 
Should  not  every  Church  be  a  Bible  Institute  in  itself?  The 
candidate  for  Church  membership  publicly  vows  to  *'  renounce 
the  world,  the  flesh  and  the  Devil  ", — would  it  not  be  well  to 
impose  a  vow  upon  candidates  to  "  search  the  scriptures  "  in 
home  and  Church  ?  Consecration  is  not  only  to  set  apart  from 
sin — but  to  set  apart  unto  God. 

May  we  not  learn  another  lesson  from  that  same  Comptroller 
who  says, — ''  A  man  who  tries  to  handle  a  primary,  first  gets 
acquainted  with  everybody  in  his  district.  He  knows  every- 
body, their  relations,  their  business,  their  habits  and  all  about 
them.  So  it  seems  to  me  that  Churches  should  follow  that  line. 
Churches  do  not  do  this,  because  they  do  not  seem  to  have  the 
same  personal  interest  as  do  the  politicians.  Some  of  our  peo- 
ple do  not  use  the  same  amount  of  persuasion  to  get  people 
into  the  Church  that  the  politicians  do  to  get  them  into  pol- 
itics." 

If  the  Church  really  believe  that  "  Godliness  is  profitable  ", 
let  it  be  proven  that  it  is  ''  unto  all  things  ",  and  that  it  has 
"  promise  of  the  life  that  now  is  ",  as  well  as  of  ''  that  which  is 
to  come  ".     The  whole  secret  of  favorable  conditions  and  re- 


452      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

suits  in  revivals  as  related  to  the  Church,  is  found  in  the  method 
of  Jesus,  "  He  took  him  by  the  hand  and  lifted  him  up  and  he 
arose."  It  is  sometimes  a  matter  of  wondering  comment  v^hy 
there  are  not  more  converts  in  the  season  of  special  evangelistic 
work  to-day;  but  the  reason  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
Church  is  not  equipped  for  the  work  of  harvesting  souls.  A 
minister  of  celebrity  in  a  large  western  city  recently  said  in  a 
ministerial  gathering — "  I  should  not  know  what  to  do  if  a 
season  of  revival  came  to  my  Church." 

Is  it  not  true,  as  has  been  stated,  that  the  student  for  the 
ministry  has  not,  in  his  seminary  course  been  practically  taught 
that  "  he  that  winneth  souls  is  wise  "  ? — and  that  this  most  im- 
portant of  all  teaching  for  successful  ministry,  is  left  to  be 
supplied  by  the  chances  of  after  life?  If  a  pastor  be  not  prac- 
tically furnished  with  the  whole  armour,  surely  it  cannot  be  ex- 
pected of  the  people.  The  most  difficult  work  of  an  evangelist 
in  this  day  is  to  convince  a  Church  membership  that  it  has  any 
part  in  seeking  out  the  lost,  and  bringing  the  unsaved  within 
sound  of  a  saving  gospel.  The  revival  most  needed  to-day  is 
in  the  Church  and  among  its  members;  and  the  part  of  the 
Church  in  revival  work  in  the  coming  years  must  depend  upon 
the  courage  manifested  in  the  breaking  away  from  the  tradi- 
tions of  men,  and  dealing  with  existing  apathy  and  worldliness 
in  the  true  spirit  of  righteous  desire.  "  When  a  man's  ways 
please  the  Lord,  he  maketh  even  his  enemies  to  be  at  peace  with 
him." 

Common  decency  is  shocked  not  only  at  the  open  and  bare- 
faced disregard  of  civil  law,  but  far  more  at  the  studied  effort 
to  bring  God's  law  into  disrepute.  Not  much  improvement 
can  be  looked  for  among  the  evil  and  immoral  classes  so  long  as 
learned  professors  in  colleges  and  learned  ecclesiastics  in  pul- 
pits publicly  hurl  ridicule  at  the  Word  of  God.  If  supposed 
ambassadors  of  Christ  pronounce  God's  Word,  not  God's 
Word,  but  simply  human  tradition,  what  regard  for  godly 
things  can  be  looked  for  from  the  unchurched  masses  ? 

The  world  is  a  keen  sighted  critic  and  sums  up  pretty  accur- 


Revivals  in  the  Light  of  the  Present  Day    453 

ately,  "  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them  ",  and  the  religion 
that  shows  itself  once  in  the  week  is  not  practical  for  a  lost 
world.  The  non-Christian  laughs  at  spasmodic  piety, — forced 
rest  from  dissipation  for  a  season, — repentance  as  guaged  by 
what  one  eats  for  forty  days,  and  turns  loose  with  the  world, 
the  flesh  and  the  devil  three  hundred  and  twenty-five  days, — 
when  "  good  form  ",  not  "  good  Lord  "  reign  supreme.  It  is 
a  problem  what  part  revivals  will  have  in  the  future  of  the 
Church.  From  existing  indications  the  outlook  is  not  encour- 
aging. 

If  a  business  man  received  so  little  compensatory  result  for 
his  capital  and  effort  as  the  Church  by  its  present  methods  re- 
ceives, through  its  vast  means  and  available  appliances,  he 
would  consider  his  business  a  failure  and  seek  compromise  with 
his  creditors.  No  more  beggarly  interest  is  paid  to-day  than 
that  paid  to  the  Lord  by  the  Church,  when  its  vast  resources 
of  opportunity,  privilege  and  means  are  considered.  If  the 
world  were  to  be  converted  to  Christ  by  present  Churchly 
methods,  human  conception  could  not  number  the  years  it 
would  take.  Comparatively,  how  few  Christians  there  are  ca- 
pable of  sitting  down  beside  a  neighbor,  and  with  God's  Word 
in  hand,  piercing  through  the  sinful  thought  and  desire  of 
"the  heart  that  regardeth  iniquity".  Indeed  there  are  not 
over-many  ministers  can  do  it.  They  are  not  educated  to  it. 
It  is  not  in  general  a  part  of  the  seminary  course.  The  Word 
of  God  must  be  used  to  build  up  Christians  as  well  as  to  stir 
out  of  the  sleep  of  death,  the  sinner.  The  Word  of  God  is  still 
"  sharper  than  a  two  edged  sword  ",  if  it  be  used,  and  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  the  agent  in  the  use  of  that  mighty  weapon.  But  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  person,  presence  and  power,  is  minimized.  Ear 
— eye — man — stomach — worship,  is  the  order  of  the  day,  and 
the  Spirit  is  grieved. 

"  Let  no  man  deceive  you,  by  any  means,  for  that  day  shall 
not  come,  except  there  come  a  falling  away  first,  and  that  man 
of  sin  be  revealed,  the  son  of  perdition ;  who  opposeth  and  ex- 
alteth  himself  above  all  that  is  called  God,  or  that  is  wor- 


454      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

shipped;  so  that  he  as  God  sitteth  in  the  temple  of. God,  show- 
ing Himself  that  He  is  God."  There  is  great  speculation  as  to 
the  possibilities  of  the  coming  century ;  not  excepting  the  part 
that  revivals  shall  have  in  the  future  of  the  Church.  Possibly 
it  will  be  but  a  little  part.  There  may  be  no  coming  century 
by  human  measurements,  for  seeing  the  hopelessness  of  life 
and  methods  in  present  conditions,  the  coming  Lord  may  come 
to  the  rescue  and  do  what  this  age  cannot  do.  *'  Therefore  let 
us  not  sleep  as  do  others,  but  let  us  watch  and  be  sober." 


Revivals  in  the  Light  of  the   Present  Day 


Revivals  in  the  Light  of  the  Present 

Day 

BY 

The  Reverend  SAMUEL  McCHORD  CROTHERS,  D.D. 

THE  term  "  revival  of  religion  "  is  often  used  in  a  narrow 
and  technical  sense.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  forms  of 
religion  are  subject  to  fluctuations  of  feeling.  A  period  of 
coldness  and  indifference  is  followed  by  a  new  access  of  spirit- 
ual energy.  Respectable  formalism  gives  way  to  a  fresh  en- 
thusiasm; old  words  take  on  new  meaning,  and  there  is 
a  great  awakening.  Chrysostom,  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  Sa- 
vonarola, Jonathan  Edwards  and  Theodore  Parker  were  re- 
vivalists. Widely  as  they  may  have  differed  from  one  another 
in  theology,  they  were  alike  in  their  power  to  startle  those  who 
had  been  content  with  the  conventionalities  of  religion.  They 
were  enemies  to  spiritual  mediocrity.  The  profession  of  re- 
ligion was  not  enough  for  them ;  they  insisted  upon  a  real  per- 
sonal experience.  Under  the  influence  of  their  preaching,  old 
truths  appeared  in  new  relations,  and  were  seen  to  involve  a 
new  way  of  life. 

Such  men  have  always  introduced  innovations;  they  have 
been  open  to  the  charge  of  sensationalism.  When  they  preached, 
they  expected  something  to  happen, — and  something  did  hap- 
pen. The  pious  routine  was  broken  up,  and  those  who  had  in- 
dulged an  easy  faith  were  sent  forth  to  strenuous  service.  The 
result  of  such  presentations  of  the  power  of  religion  has  always 
been  a  conflict  with  worldliness.  What  sympathy  could  the 
fervent  follower  of  Wycliffe  expect  from  the  merry  friar, 
when: 

"  Ful  swetely  herde  he  confession,  and  pleasant  was  his  ab- 
solution." 

When,  therefore,  I  am  asked  to  write  in  criticism  of  the 
revivals  of  religion  in  our  modern  evangelical   Churches,   I 

457 


458      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

must  disclaim  any  objection  to  revivals,  as  such.  I  should  as 
soon  object  to  the  spring-time. 

The  last  half  century  has  shown  in  many  respects  a  marked 
improvement  in  the  character  of  religious  revivals.  The  appeal 
to  fear  has  very  largely  been  given  up;  we  no  longer  hear  of 
those  physical  contortions  which  were  in  the  early  part  of  the 
century  mistaken  for  the  movings  of  the  spirit;  and  above  all 
we  must  acknowledge  the  increased  emphasis  upon  conduct  and 
character.  Upon  certain  obvious  moral  conditions,  the  influ- 
ence of  an  evangelical  revival  is  good.  The  emphasis  is  laid 
upon  temperance  and  the  virtues  of  domestic  life.  The  con- 
vert is  likely  to  be  awakened  to  his  duty  to  his  family  and  to  his 
neighborhood,  as  well  as  to  his  Church. 

To  the  man  who  has  been  living  a  worldly,  careless  life,  the 
orthodox  revival  is  indeed  a  "  means  of  grace  ".  It  brings  to 
him  the  realization  of  the  spiritual  nature  with  which  he  was 
endowed.  But,  how  far  does  the  revivalist  impress  him  with 
the  thought  that  he  has  made  only  the  beginning,  and  that  he 
must  make  progress  in  the  life  which  he  has  begun?  What 
encouragement  does  he  give  him  to  add  to  faith  virtue,  and  to 
virtue  knowledge? 

Here  is  the  weak  point  in  the  popular  "  revival.''  There  are 
elements  in  the  finest  religious  life  of  to-day,  which,  so  far 
from  being  revived  are  actually  discouraged  in  the  ordinary  re- 
vival efforts.  One  of  these  elements  is  the  love  of  truth.  Many 
years  ago,  James  Martineau  wrote : — 

"  The  rarity  with  which  doctrines  connected  with  morals  and 
divinity  are  looked  at  with  a  single  eye  to  their  truth  or  false- 
hood, is  disheartening  to  those  who  know  what  this  symptom 
implies.  The  fear  of  doubt  is  already  the  renunciation  of  faith. 
With  all  the  talk  of  infidelity  in  this  age  no  one  has  more  cer- 
tainly a  heart  of  unbelief  than  he  who  cannot  simply  trust  him- 
self to  the  realities  of  God;  who  cannot  say — '  If  here  there  be 
light  let  us  use  it  gladly,  if  otherwise  let  us  go  into  the  dark 
where  Heaven  ordains;  '  owning  our  helplessness,  we  shall  feel 
the  Invisible  Presence  near  us  keeping  His  Holy  watch;  but 


Revivals  in  the  Light  of  the  Present  Day    459 

pretending  that  we  see  we  shall  be  left  to  a  bleak  and  lonely 
night." 

Our  age  is  familiar  with  the  severe  standard  of  veracity  set 
by  the  man  of  science  in  his  laboratory.  How  careful  he  is  to 
free  his  mind  of  every  prejudice  that  might  obscure  his  judg- 
ment ;  how  intent  he  is  in  his  observation,  how  watchful  over 
his  own  words  lest  he  misreport  the  facts.  The  demand  is 
that  the  same  high  standard  be  applied  to  religion. 

How  far  does  what  is  commonly  known  as  a  revival  issue 
in  a  finer  sensitiveness  to  the  claims  of  truth  ?  How  far  does 
it  develop  what  has  been  termed  "  the  piety  of  the  intellect "  ? 
A  test  of  this  may  be  found  in  the  effect  upon  the  study  of  the 
Bible.  Here  is  a  field  wherein  reverent  scholarship  has  been  at 
work,  seeking  only  to  find  the  truth.  In  almost  every  case  the 
so-called  revivalist  uses  his  influence  in  behalf  of  an  unscholarly 
dogmatism  rather  than  in  behalf  of  genuine  truth  seeking.  The 
career  of  the  late  Henry  Drummond  gave  promise  of  a  new 
kind  of  evangelist,  whose  zeal  shall  be  according  to  knowledge. 

Another  element  which  is  insufficiently  exhibited  in  the  or- 
dinary revival  is  that  of  justice  as  between  man  and  man. 

We  hear  much  of  justice  as  a  divine  attribute,  and  much  de- 
nunciation of  human  sinfulness ;  but  the  revival  methods  tend 
to  blur  those  distinctions  between  the  just  and  the  unjust  which 
are  necessary  in  a  well  ordered  society.  Justice  is  only  attained 
through  the  habit  of  discrimination;  and  the  revivalist  is  apt 
to  be  indiscriminating.  He  is  likely  to  mistake  sweeping  de- 
nunciation for  prophetic  fervor.  In  particular,  he  is  likely  to 
fail  in  discriminating  between  intellectual  differences  and 
moral  obliquity.  After  a  revival  of  religion  in  a  community 
there  are  too  frequently  found  heart  burnings  and  misunder- 
standings which  have  come  because  the  new  fervour  has  not 
been  properly  tempered  by  a  judicial  fairness  of  mind. 

The  most  serious  defect  in  the  ordinary  revival  of  religion 
lies  in  its  lack  of  spiritual  elevation.  To  popularize  religion  is 
a  worthy  aim,  but  those  who  attempt  to  do  it  often  succeed  only 
in  vulgarizing  it.     Reverence  is  an  essential  quality  which  is 


460      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

too  often  sacrificed  to  a  flippant  familiarity  with  sacred  things. 
Here  we  must,  of  course,  not  be  too  fastidious,  and  we  must 
remember  that  what  may  seem  to  one  cheap  and  unworthy, 
may  to  another  be  a  symbol  of  the  highest  ideals.  Doubtless,  to 
many  an  inhabitant  of  the  slums  the  tinkling  tambourines  of  the 
Salvation  Army  have  brought  holy  thoughts  and  suggestions 
of  a  higher  sphere  of  life  and  thought.  So  long  as  they  actu- 
ally do  this  they  are  justified  by  their  results. 

But  the  point  is  this, — the  methods  of  religion  must  always 
be  such  as  to  produce  the  religious  attitude.  The  preaching, 
the  symbolism,  the  discipline,  must  all  be  on  a  little  higher 
plane  than  the  ordinary  life  of  those  who  are  to  be  reached. 
The  essential  thing  is  that  they  must  look  up.  The  religious 
teacher  must  present  an  ideal  which  commands  their  reverence. 

The  sad  thing  is  to  see  apparent  success  attained  by  the  ap- 
peal to  something  less  than  the  best.  Religion  then  becomes  a 
satisfaction  in  the  actual  rather  than  a  striving  for  the  ideal. 
Thus  presented  it  becomes  a  reactionary  rather  than  a  pro- 
gressive force. 

In  what  I  have  written  I  have  had  in  mind  the  genuine, 
though  imperfect  revival  of  religion.  In  so  far  as  it  is  a  revi- 
val of  any  of  the  elements  of  religion  it  is  worthy  of  our  sym- 
pathy. A  rational  criticism  is  directed  not  toward  its  excess 
but  toward  its  defects.  The  danger  is  not  that  there  may  be 
too  much  zeal,  but  that  there  may  be  too  little  clear  thinking, 
discriminating  judgment  and  passion  for  ideal  perfection. 

It  is  necessary  to  add  but  a  word  in  regard  to  the  pseudo  re- 
vival. In  the  acts  of  the  Apostles  we  are  told  of  the  preaching 
of  Philip  in  Samaria,  and  how  "  there  was  much  joy  in  that 
city  ".  In  the  very  next  verse  we  are  made  to  see  the  ugly 
face  of  Simon  Magus  giving  out  to  the  people  of  Samaria 
that  he  himself  was  some  great  one;  to  whom  they  all  gave 
heed  from  the  least  to  the  greatest,  saying,  "  This  man  is  that 
power  of  God  which  is  called  Great."  It  was  not  easy  for  the 
simple  minded  believers  to  discriminate  between  the  genuine 
and  the  false.    For  "  when  they  believed  Philip  preaching  good 


Revivals  in  the  Light  of  the  Present  Day    461 

tidings  concerning  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ,  they  were  baptized  both  men  and  women,  and  Simon 
also  himself  believed,  and  being  baptized  he  continued  with 
Philip." 

There  does  not  exist  a  more  despicable  creature  than  he  who 
sees  in  the  holiest  emotions  of  others  only  a  power  to  further 
his  own  fortunes.  In  our  days  the  experience  of  the  Apostolic 
Church  has  often  been  repeated.  It  is  pitiful  to  think  of  the 
slowness  with  which  good  people  perceive  the  difference  be- 
tween a  godly  sincerity  and  a  simulated  zeal.  Much  of  the 
discredit  thrown  upon  the  earnest  expression  of  religion,  comes 
from  the  honest  revulsion  of  feeling  from  those  who  have  made 
the  revival  of  religion  a  trade.  The  very  name  "  revivalist " 
has  often  taken  an  unworthy  meaning. 

At  no  time  is  it  so  necessary  as  in  a  period  of  universal  re- 
ligious interest,  to  have  as  leaders  in  the  church  men  of  keen 
insight  into  character,  and  courage  to  expose  the  pious  fraud. 
It  is  the  time  for  Peter  to  say  to  Simon  Magus :  "  Thou  hast 
neither  part  nor  lot  in  this  matter;  for  thy  heart  is  not  right 
before  God." 


The  New  Orthodoxy 


A  New  Orthodoxy 

BY 

The  Reverend  DANIEL  EVANS 

THE  subject  pre-supposes  that  there  are  changes  in  The- 
ology. This  is  not  surprising,  for  Theology  is  called 
upon  to  interpret  the  Divine  Revelation  in  Nature,  Man  and 
the  Christ.  While  it  deals  with  realities  eternal,  and  with 
truths  illimitable,  its  interpretation  is  progressive  and  partial. 
When  we  consider  the  abundance  of  new  material  brought  to 
us  by  the  different  sciences,  it  is  only  natural  that  changes 
should  occur.  There  are  constant  advances  in  the  physical 
sciences.  The  Science  of  Biology  has  changed,  not  only  our 
theories,  but  also  the  very  spirit  of  our  thinking.  The  growth 
of  historical  research  necessitates  new  conclusions  as  to  God's 
action  in  the  historic  process.  The  comparative  study  of  re- 
ligions furnishes  us  with  data  which  demand  a  larger  view  of 
the  providence  of  God  and  the  spiritual  nature  of  man.  The 
critical  study  of  the  Bible  imposes  new  tasks  on  Biblical  The- 
ology and  necessitates  revision  of  opinion  as  to  the  nature  and 
method  of  Revelation.  Philosophy  is  still  hard  at  work  in  its 
endeavour  to  unify  all  our  knowledge.  Equally  potent  in  the 
production  of  changes  in  Theology  is  the  realization  of  the 
truths  of  Revelation  which  hitherto  have  been  too  often  neg- 
lected. These  truths  in  the  Bible  which  require  new  ages  and 
new  conditions  for  their  full  appreciation — we  need  but  in- 
stance the  new  emphasis  on  the  sociological  significance  of 
Paul's  truth  of  "  the  body  and  the  members  "  and  the  ethical 
significance  of  Christ's  words  in  the  25th  chapter  of  the  Gospel 
according  to  St.  Matthew.  We  are  not,  therefore,  going  be- 
yond, but  deeper  into  revelation,  in  our  changes  in  theology. 

/.   The  change  zvhich  may  be  characterised  as  "  the  nezv 

theism/' 
This  is  seen  in  the  stress  laid  upon  the  truth  of  the  imma- 
nence of  God.    This  truth  we  constantly  meet  in  the  best  litera- 

465 


466       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

ture  and  philosophy  of  England  and  America;  it  has  been  the 
vital  element  in  the  philosophic  thought  in  Germany  for  a  cen- 
tury. No  longer  do  we  think  of  God  as  separate  and  far  re- 
moved from  His  world,  rather,  we  think  of  God  as  related  to 
the  world  in  much  the  same  way  as  the  soul  is  to  the  body.  Here 
the  relation  is  vital  and  organic.  The  soul  vitalizes  the  body. 
The  body  is  not  the  soul,  nor  does  it  exhaust  or  express  all  the 
thought,  love  and  purpose  of  the  soul;  the  world  is  not  God, 
nor  does  it  exhaust  the  thought,  love  and  purpose  of  God.  This 
immanent  God  is  ever  and  everywhere  operative.  With  the 
abandonment  of  the  idea  of  an  "  absentee  God,"  has  gone  the 
idea  of  an  "  otiose  Deity."  Science  is  the  sermon  on  the  words 
of  Christ:  "My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I  too  work." 
God  himself  is  ever  active  in  His  world.  Nothing  is  delegated 
to  "  angels,"  "  aeons,"  "  laws,"  "  forces,"  or  "  evolution." 
God's  action  is  immediate.  Everything  thrills,  pulsates  with 
energy  and  movement.  There  is  no  dead  matter — all  is  alive 
with  power.  Every  atom,  process  of  nature,  as  well  as  the 
course  of  planets,  bear  witness  to  God's  ceaseless  activity.  God 
is  not  so  much  the  first  cause,  as  the  constant  cause  and  eternal 
ground  of  all.  God  is  the  binding  and  unifying  power  of  all. 
Everything  is  related ;  the  blade  of  grass  is  dependent  upon  all 
nature  for  its  life ;  so  intimately  allied  are  all  things  in  nature, 
that  every  science,  however  specialized  it  may  become,  is  closely 
connected  with  all  the  other  branches.  Departments  of  knowl- 
edge so  far  apart  as  physiology  and  philology  are  related  to 
each  other.  Man  too  finds  that  he  is  a  part  of,  and  in,  the  great 
whole.  He  comes  from  it  and  lives  in  it.  But  in  virtue  of  his 
personality  he  sustains  a  more  intimate  relation  to  the  ground 
of  the  unity.  He  is  more  akin  to  God.  There  is  an  original 
and  indestructible  and  personal  relation  of  man  to  God  and 
union  with  Him.  God  is  the  binding  tie  of  all.  In  Him  all 
things  cohere.  Their  manifestations  are  the  expressions  of 
the  inner  life  of  God.  Nature  is  the  utterance  of  the  thought 
of  God. 

This  truth  of  unity  of  the  world  reveals  to  us  the  extent  and 


A  New  Orthodoxy  467 

significance  of  law.  Law  is  everywhere,  for  God  is  everywhere. 
Law  is  the  habitual  method  by  which  God  works.  It  is  His 
rational  way  of  doing  things.  There  is  no  place  for  chance  in 
His  rational  universe.  Everything  is  rational  and  law-abiding. 
The  freedom  of  God  is  the  freedom  of  Law.  There  are  no 
contradictions  in  nature,  for  there  are  none  in  God.  What  is 
now  inexplicable  is  not  irrational,  but  unexplained.  The  inex- 
plicable will  one  day  be  interpreted,  as  were  the  hieroglyphics 
of  Egypt,  and  mind  will  converse  with  mind.  Our  deepest 
faith  manifests  itself  to-day  in  taking  God's  universe  as  it  is, 
in  conforming  to  His  laws  in  nature  and  in  allowing  God  Him- 
self to  conform  to  them,  rather  than  change  them  at  our  sug- 
gestion. God  has  realized  His  thought  and  purpose  in  the 
world  by  a  gradual  and  organic  evolution.  From  atom  to 
mind,  we  read  progress.  There  are  gaps  in  our  knowledge,  but 
the  law  of  evolution  holds  so  far,  and  goes  so  deep,  that  thought 
demands  the  rational  continuity  of  the  same  method.  Every- 
thing that  comes  after  stands  in  an  organic  relation  to  what 
has  preceded.  It  is  not  claimed  that  man  came  from  any  ani- 
mal, but  from  God  along  the  pathway  of  the  animal  creation. 
He  is  no  more  a  special  creation  than  anything  that  preceded 
him.  His  pre-eminence  is  that  by  virtue  of  his  personality  he 
is  the  highest  product  of  the  evolutional  process  and  the  most 
adequate  expression  of  the  thought  of  God.  He  is  therefore 
the  goal  of  the  process.  The  soul  in  nature  is  deep  in  slumber ; 
in  the  animal  is  dreaming  just  before  the  dawn;  in  man  is 
awake.  Man  alone  stands  erect,  God-conquered,  with  face  to 
heaven  upturned. 

This  new  theism  yields  significant  results.  Perhaps  the 
greatest  result,  though  least  palpable,  is  the  new  spirit,  the  new 
mental  attitude  toward  all  subjects.  It  is  what  Balfour  calls 
**  the  psychological  climate."  It  is  the  spirit  that  loves  facts  first 
and  theories  afterward.  It  creates  a  strong  faith  in  the  rational. 
It  looks  for  God,  not  in  the  gaps  of  our  knowledge,  in  the  things 
which  Reason  cannot  at  present  explain,  but  in  the  whole  pro- 
cess and  in  the  explicable.    God  is  not  brought  in  where  evolu- 


468      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

tion  apparently  breaks  down,  but  He  is  found  everywhere  in 
His  world  and  everywhere  in  the  process  of  the  evolution  of  the 
world.    Another  result  is  seen  in  the  way  that  we  all  try  to 
abolish  the  hard  opposition  made  between  the  natural  and  the 
supernatural.    We  see  now  that  the  partisans  of  Science  created 
a  false  separation  between  two  realms  when  in  reality  there  can 
be  no  separation.   They  separated  the  natural  from  the  super- 
natural, suffered  no  unusual  action  by  God  in  the  realm  which 
they  arrogated  to  themselves,  and  ever  added  to  it  more  terri- 
tory from  the  realm  of  the  supernaturalists.   The  supernatural- 
ists,  on  the  other  hand,  were  wrong  in  their  admission  and  in 
their  contention,  when  they  conceded  to  the  scientists  their  claim 
of  a  separation  between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  and  de- 
manded the  right  for  God  to  interfere  in  the  realm  of  the  nat- 
ural by  violence  without  regard  to  the  laws  already  in  force 
there.    We  deny  the  right  of  the  claim  to  separate  the  natural 
and  the  supernatural.     We  see  in  the  miracle,  not  something 
that  interferes  with  order,  but  the  working  of  God  in  accord- 
ance with  a  higher  law.     We  ascribe  far  greater  powers  and 
possibilities  to  nature  than  either  the  naturalists  or  supernat- 
uralists are  wont  to.      We  regard  nature  as  a  sphere  in  which 
the  law-abiding  God  manifests  Himself.    Everything  from  one 
point     of  view  is  supernatural;  from  another  everything  is 
natural.     Since  God's  power  is  in  nature  and  works  accord- 
ing to  law,  we  may  call  it  natural;  since  the  power  is  not  of 
nature,  but  of  God,  we  may  regard  it  as  supernatural.     "  The 
budding  of  a  rose  and  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  are  due  to  the 
same  power."     "  There  is  no  division  of  labour  between  God 
and  law."    All  is  of  God,  according  to  law,  and  the  law  itself 
is  of  God.    The  new  theism  brings  to  the  soul  a  present  living 
God.     It  feels  that  it  is  here  and  now  in  God's  world — every- 
thing witnesses  to  His  presence — the  Burning  Bush  is  a  symbol 
of  His  presence  in  every  bush.     The  God  whom  it  feels  in  the 
depths  of  its  own  life,  is  one  who  not  only  spoke,  but  speaks; 
who  not  only  acted,  but  acts;  who  not  only  inspired,  but  in- 


A  New  Orthodoxy  469 

spires.     This  conviction  is  the  vitaHzing  power  of  our  best  lit- 
erature, philosophy  and  life. 

2.  The  change  in  our  thought  of  Revelation  and  the  Bible. 

Revelation  is  a  living  possession  of  the  soul  which  may  or 
may  not  be  written  and  the  whole  of  which  never  could  be 
written.  The  Bible  is  the  literary  record  of  a  part  of  the  Word 
of  God.  The  Bible  is  no  more  coterminous  with  Revelation 
than  it  is  synonymous  therewith.  We  hold  firmly  to  the  reality 
of  the  inspiration  of  the  men  through  whom  the  revelation 
came.  We  find  inspiration,  not  in  the  collecting  and  compiling 
of  documents  and  such  like  verbal  matters,  but  in  the  activity 
of  the  souls  of  these  men.  Inspiration,  since  it  is  of  the  soul, 
must  be  in  accord  with  the  laws  of  the  activity  of  the  soul. 
When  the  soul's  activity  is  at  its  highest  and  best,  then  it  sees 
clearest.  And  since  the  mind  does  not  generate  the  truths  from 
within  itself,  but  from  contact  with  the  Eternal  Mind,  and 
since  the  consciousness  of  man  is  deeper  than  its  explication  to 
the  intellect,  every  inspired  man  grasped  truths,  the  full  signifi- 
cance of  which  he  himself  did  not  comprehend.  The  evidence 
of  inspiration  we  find  in  the  content  of  the  message  of  the  in- 
spired. We  note  it  in  the  strong  conviction  on  the  part  of  the 
historian  that  God  is  in  the  history  of  man;  we  feel  it  in  the 
psalmist's  experience  in  finding  peace  in  God.  We  perceive  it  in 
the  prophet's  vision  of  God,  in  the  strong  insistence  on  the 
social  nature  and  ethical  character  of  religion  and  in  the  hope 
of  some  coming  One  who  would  redeem  the  nation.  We  see 
it  in  the  majestic  struggle  of  Job  for  the  solution  of  the  problem 
of  human  suffering.  In  the  New  Testament,  we  find  it  in  the 
sublime  life  of  the  Christ,  in  the  new  characters  He  has  created, 
which  give  rise  to  new  thoughts  and  ideals,  and  in  the  manifest 
consciousness  of  God.  We  hold  that  the  scientific  description 
of  the  data  brought  to  us  by  the  critics,  no  more  explains  them 
in  any  deep  philosophic  way,  than  the  description  of  the  scien- 
tists explains  in  any  ultimate  way  this  world  of  ours.     The 


470      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

great  souls  of  the  Bible  have  not  returned  to  us  with  messages 
from  some  ''  Weissnichtwo,"  but  from  contact  and  communion 
with  God.  This  conviction,  however,  carries  us  one  step  farther. 
We  recognize  that  if  the  content  of  revelation  is  the  criter- 
ion, then  we  must  conclude  that  the  activity  of  the  spirit  of  God 
was  not  confined  to  the  Hebrews.  Men  have  come  into  rela- 
tion with  the  same  reality  elsewhere  than  in  Palestine.  A  study 
of  the  religions  of  the  world  leads  us  to  believe  in  an  "ethnic 
inspiration,"  Religion  is  as  wide  and  deep  as  humanity.  The 
unscientific  statement  that  there  are  peoples  without  religions 
is  gone,  and  fast  following  it  is  another  equally  unfounded 
statement — that  all  other  religions  than  the  Christian  are  false. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  false  religion.  There  are  false  ele- 
ments in  religions,  but  the  power  of  those  religions  for  right- 
teousness  has  been  in  virtue  of  the  true  in  them  and  in  spite 
of  the  faults.  No  longer  can  we  characterize  religions  as  true 
and  false,  revealed  and  natural,  but  as  perfect  and  imperfect, 
as  absolute  and  relative.  The  imperfect  and  relative  religions 
have  been  working  out  by  sweat  of  brain  and  pang  of  heart  the 
argument  for  the  existence  of  God  which  we  now  think  out  in 
our  studies.  And  if  they  had  not  worked  them  out  in  the  past 
we  would  not  be  thinking  them  out  in  the  present.  "  The  his- 
tory of  religion  is  the  explication  of  religion."  They  all  have 
a  real,  if  inadequate,  knowledge  of  God.  The  founders  and 
continuators  of  those  religions  were  in  contact  with  the  same 
Reality  as  the  prophets  of  Israel.  Christianity  acknowledges 
their  truths,  relates  them  to  others  of  which  they  were  not 
cognizant  and  points  them  to  the  One  Person  of  all  history 
who  revealed  and  embodied  all  these  truths  in  virtue  of  which 
He  is  the  Life  and  the  Light  of  the  World. 

J.  The  changes  in  our  thought  of  the  Christ. 

Dr.  Fairbairn  says :  *'  The  most  distinctive  and  determina- 
tive element  in  modern  theology  is  what  we  may  term  a  new 
feeling  for  the  Christ."  There  is  a  new  personal  feeling  for 
the  Christ.     Men  now  think  of  Christ  as  a  real  human  being. 


A  New  Orthodoxy  471 

There  is  a  great  desire  to  know  more  about  His  human  hfe,  to 
see  Him  among  men.  This  interest  is  seen  in  the  great  sale 
of  popular  lives  of  the  Christ,  in  the  abundance  of  pictures  of 
the  Christ  in  the  magazines  and  in  the  applause  the  name  of  the 
Christ  receives  in  the  great  conventions  of  the  working  people. 
There  is  also  a  feeling  for  the  Christ  which  we  may  charac- 
terize as  the  historical.  The  real  motive  of  most  of  the  critics 
who  have  concentrated  their  attention  upon  the  gospels  is  the 
desire  to  see  the  Christ  Himself  directly,  rather  than  through 
the  eyes  of  the  Church,  the  Apostle  Paul  or  the  immediate 
circle  of  disciples.  It  is  the  effort  to  see  what  the  Christ  was,  so 
that  we  might  know  what  original  Christianity  was.  It  is  the  at- 
tempt to  trace  the  mighty  Christian  river  to  its  source,  rather 
than  explore  tributaries.  If  the  Ritschlians  merit  criticism  for 
their  depreciation  of  God's  world,  they  merit  praise  for  their 
study  of  God's  word.  But  there  is  a  deeper  feeling  for  the 
Christ  which  we  may  characterize  as  the  ethical.  We  see  how 
great  was  His  soul,  what  profound  thoughts  were  in  His  mind, 
what  pure  feelings  in  His  heart,  what  great  purposes  were  His 
for  which  He  gave  His  life, — we  confess  Him  one  in  thought, 
in  sentiment  and  purpose  with  God.  He  is  the  King  of  our 
souls  in  virtue  of  His  character.  Never  as  much  as  now  did  the 
moral  ideal  of  Jesus  and  His  character  have  such  a  place  in  the 
life  and  thought  of  people.  Still  deeper  is  the  feeling  for 
the  Christ  which  may  be  characterized  as  philosophical  and  re- 
ligious. We  believe  in  the  word  made  flesh.  We  rejoice  in 
this  varied  interest  in  the  Christ,  but  ours  goes  deeper.  It  is 
not  enough  for  us  to  say  that  He  was  the  greatest  of  men,  the 
divinest  of  seers.  We  accept  the  statement  of  the  gentle 
Charles  Lamb  and  apply  it  in  all  comparisons  between  Christ 
and  other  masters.  "  If  Shakespeare  was  to  come  into  the 
room,  we  should  all  rise  up  to  meet  him ;  but  if  that  person  (the 
Christ)  was  to  come  into  it,  we  should  all  fall  down  and  try 
to  kiss  the  hem  of  His  garment !  "  We  respect  Shakespeare ; 
we  pray  in  the  name  of  Christ. 

The  central  fact  in  the  Christian  faith  is  the  Incarnation. 


472      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

The  universal  and  the  particular  here  meet  in  perfect  accord. 
There  is  perfect  response  between  the  Christ  and  God.  God 
fills  the  field  of  His  consciousness,  but  the  personality  of  the 
Christ  is  maintained  in  its  strict  integrity.  The  one  is  not  sac- 
rificed to  the  other,  but  finds  in  the  other  the  object  it  longs  for. 
If  we  are  not  satisfied  with  the  creedal  expression  of  our  faith 
in  the  person  of  the  Christ,  it  is  because  of  its  inadequacy,  not 
its  overstatement.  The  psychology  of  the  creeds  is  discredited, 
— the  person  of  the  creeds  lives  and  is  credited  with  more  of 
thought,  personal  power  and  character  than  ever  before.  If 
we  can  no  longer  speak  of  two  separate,  distinct  natures,  out 
from  either  of  which  he  may  speak  at  will,  now  as  man,  now 
as  God,  we  do  recognize  the  truth  which  they  were  striving  to 
express  by  these  terms.  As  we  no  longer  seek  for  God, 
outside  or  alongside,  but  in  His  world,  so  we  no  longer 
seek  for  the  divinity  of  our  Lord  in  two  separate  natures,  but 
in  the  one  living,  thinking,  feeling  and  willing  Personality. 
And  we  cannot  think  this  Personality  to  the  roots  of  His 
being,  we  cannot  sound  the  depths  of  the  basal  union  of  this 
soul  with  God  and  express  the  result  in  terms  less  significant 
than  the  confessions  of  the  Scripture,  the  symbols  of  the 
Church  and  the  hymns  of  the  Faith.  However  great  and  sub- 
lime the  thought  of  the  Incarnation,  it  is  easier  for  us  of  to-day 
to  understand  than  for  those  of  other  days.  History  shows 
that  Christ  is  the  moral  leader  of  mankind.  The  new  evolu- 
tional construction  of  our  world  makes  it  easier  to  think  of 
the  Christ  as  the  disciples,  especially  Paul  did.  The  larger  sig- 
nificance of  the  Incarnation  makes  the  thought  reasonable. 

The  deeper  thinking  of  the  New  Testament  correlates  Christ 
and  the  Creation.  He  is  the  head  of  all.  The  purpose  of  God 
which  found  its  first  manifestation  and  imperfect  realization  in 
the  evolution  of  the  world,  a  fuller  manifestation  and  a  more 
perfect  realization  in  the  arrival  and  ascent  of  Man,  finds  at 
last  in  the  Christ  the  adequate  manifestation  and  complete  reali- 
zation. Creation  is  the  first  and  Christ  the  final  term  of  the 
Purpose  of  God.     In  like  manner,  the  deeper  thinking  of  the 


A  New  Orthodoxy  473 

New  Testament  correlates  Christ  and  Humanity.  He  is  the 
Head  of  humanity.  He  is  the  person  who  unifies  all  men  in  a 
social  fellowship  in  which  each  finds  himself  in  a  right  relation 
to  his  brother-man.  The  full  explanation  for  the  existence  and 
nature  of  man  is  given  in  Christ  alone.  Men,  therefore,  do  not 
explain  Christ, — He  explains  them.  As  man  is  the  final  end 
of  nature  and  therefore  is  the  principle  to  explain  the  power 
at  work  in  nature,  so  Christ,  seeing  that  He  is  the  final  end  of 
all  men,  is  the  principle  to  explain  the  existence,  nature  and 
destiny  of  man, — verily,  He  is  the  Light  of  the  World.  We 
find  the  rationale  of  the  Incarnation  in  the  nature  and  the  pur- 
pose of  God,  rather  than  in  the  sinful  condition  of  man.  Sin 
may  have  changed  the  time,  condition,  incidents  of  the  Incar- 
nation, but  sin  was  not  the  ground  of  it,  nor  was  its  removal 
the  final  purpose  of  the  Incarnation.  There  was  something  in 
the  thought  of  (jod  prior  to  the  thought  of  reconciliation.  It 
was  the  end  for  which  both  nature  and    man    should    exist. 

There  is  something  deeper  than  the  sin  of  man.  It  is  the 
original  and  indestructible  union  of  God  and  man.  There  will 
ever  be  in  process  a  deeper  realization  of  the  purpose  of  God, 
when  sin  will  be  but  the  faded  recollection  of  the  past.  The 
soul  must  ever  find  its  life  in  relation  to  God  and  man  through 
the  eternal  Christ.  Christ  is  the  end  of  all  and  in  relation  to 
Him  do  we  find  our  eternal  salvation. 

The  Incarnation  is  the  final  principle  for  the  interpretation 
of  the  character  of  God  as  revealed  in  Nature.  The  heart  of 
the  Universe  is  like  that  which  beat  in  the  bosom  of  Christ. 
"  Ours,"  as  Dr.  Gordon  says,  "  is  a  Christological  universe." 
We  moralize  the  eternal  energy  of  which  Spencer  speaks.  The 
Power  not  Ourselves,  on  which  the  late  Matthew  Arnold  dis- 
coursed, we  know  as  the  eternal  God,  the  basis  and  pledge  of 
the  realization  of  all  righteousness.  We  baptize  our  "  new 
theism  "  into  the  name  of  Christ.  We  are  thus  saved  from  the 
vaporous  and  immoral  pantheism  of  Pope  expressed  in  the  line : 
"  Whatever  is,  is  right."  In  like  manner,  Christ  becomes  the 
final  principle  for  the  interpretation  of  the  character  of  God 


474      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

as  revealed  in  human  life.  Christ's  words  are  taken  in  their 
full  meaning:  ''  He  who  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father.'* 
God  is  Christlike.  Christ  is  Godlike.  The  profoundest  inter- 
pretation of  the  character  of  God  is  in  the  term,  Father.  The 
Fatherhood  of  God  is  grounded  in  His  nature.  It  is  not  con- 
ditioned by  the  attitude  of  men.  It  means  an  everlasting  in- 
terest in  every  soul.  The  interest  never  changes,  for  God  can- 
not deny  Himself.  We  cannot  ascribe  to  God  anything  which 
we  would  not  ascribe  to  Christ,  nor  respect  in  man.  However 
powerful  God  may  be,  He  must  be  love.  However  sovereign 
He  is.  He  must  be  righteous.  In  the  same  way  Christ  becomes 
the  criterion  for  the  determination  of  revelation.  We  make  the 
Christ  the  sole  authority  for  the  truth  within  or  without  the 
Bible.  The  validity  of  any  part  of  the  Bible  as  authority  for 
faith  and  conduct  is  determined  by  its  germinal  or  developed 
congruity  with  the  thought  and  life  of  Christ.  We  are  be- 
ginning to  feel  how  unfortunate  is  the  use  of  the  term  Infal- 
libility as  applied  to  the  Bible.  When  applied  to  the  whole 
Bible,  it  is  an  undue  use  of  the  principle  of  extension.  Every 
book  and  part  of  the  Bible  must  bear  its  own  burden.  The 
actual  carrying  into  life  of  principles  found  in  the  Bible  irre- 
spective of  their  relation  to  the  Christ,  the  sole  final  authority, 
has  resulted  in  most  unChristlike  acts.  Furthermore,  while 
Catholicism  is  the  religion  of  the  Church  and  Protestantism  the 
religion  of  the  Bible,  Christianity  is  the  religion  of  the  Personal 
Christ.  Jesus  did  not  come  to  give  us  another  code  for  con- 
duct, but  a  new  Spirit  for  life.  The  Bible  is  indispensable  in  its 
place,  but  when  it  is  in  the  place  of  Christ,  it  is  out  of  place. 
It  ever  points  us  beyond  itself, — to  the  flowers,  sun,  moon  and 
stars,  to  men,  institutions  and  nations,  and  to  the  Christ,  to 
find  therein  the  same  God  whom  those  men  found  who  gave  us 
the  Bible. 

4,  The  Change  in  our  thought  of  Atonement. 

We  are  emphasizing  the  fact  that  the  love  which  finds  its  ex- 
pression in  the  atonement  is  an  eternal  love.     The  work  of 


A  New  Orthodoxy  475 

Christ  on  the  earth  is  not  regarded  as  manifesting  a  new  dis- 
position of  God  toward  men, — but  as  the  new  and  most  effec- 
tive demonstration  and  realization  of  an  eternal  disposition 
and  determination  of  God  for  His  children.  We  see  in  Christ's 
work  a  demonstration,  in  the  highest  terms,  of  the  truth  that  in 
the  very  nature  of  God,  Atonement  had  everlastingly  its  po- 
tential and  efficient  foundation.  What  the  Christ  was  and  what 
He  did  on  earth  was  the  time-focussed  expression  of  what  God 
eternally  is  and  had  been  partially  realizing  in  nature,  more 
fully  in  man,  and  absolutely  only  in  the  Christ.  The  Law  of 
Sacrifice  is  fundamental.  It  is  adumbrated  in  nature,  it  dawns 
with  human  life,  it  is  in  its  noontime  glory  in  the  life  of  Christ. 
Christ  is  not  the  only  expression  of  the  love  of  God,  but  He  is 
the  only  adequate  expression  of  that  love.  The  Atonement 
is  by  the  living  personality  of  Jesus  rather  than  by  some  specific 
act  in  His  life.  It  was  first  a  fact  in  His  own  life.  He  Him- 
self was  always  at  one  with  God.  His  whole  life,  therefore, 
with  all  its  wealth  of  thought  and  sentiment  and  personal 
power,  and  all  the  incidents  in  that  life,  is  the  saving  power. 
He  reconciles  because  He  was  Himself  ever  reconciled  and  be- 
cause He  knows  best  the  soul  of  man.  Because  He  Himself 
was  in  communion  with  God,  He  brought  others  into  commun- 
ion with  Him.  The  effect  of  the  love  and  service  of  Christ 
is  the  reconciliation  of  man  to  God.  Christ  is  not  better  than 
God,  but  is  the  expression  of  the  love  of  God.  God  does  not 
stand  off,  demanding  some  appeasing  of  His  wrath  before  He 
will  have  aught  to  do  with  man.  Christ  did  not  first  have  to 
reconcile  God.  Nor  did  Christ  come  to  save  man  from  suffer- 
ing, from  punishment,  but  from  sin.  He  saves  man  to  all  that 
is  in  God,  to  His  wrath  no  less  than  to  His  love.  He  brings 
the  soul  into  its  native  environment,  for  as  the  air  is  the  en- 
vironment of  the  bird,  so  God  is  the  environment  of  the  soul. 
Only  in  right  relation  to  God  does  the  soul  realize  its  true  life. 
The  man  with  whom  God  has  ever  been  in  union,  now  holds 
communion  with  Him. 


4/6      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

5.  The  Larger  Conception   of  Salvation. 

Salvation  is  interpreted  in  the  terms  of  ethics  as  well  as  in 
the  terms  of  religion.  We  are  asking  what  is  the  nature  of  the 
man  reconciled  to  God  and  are  recovering  our  renewed  human 
life  with  all  its  wealth  of  thought  and  sentiment,  social  rela- 
tions and  institutions.  There  is  at  present  great  interest  in 
the  study  of  ethics  and  this  study  has  yielded  us  a  far  richer 
conception  of  the  nature  of  man.  Ethics  speaks  of  divine  pos- 
sibilities in  every  soul,  knows  nothing  of  a  lost  original  endow- 
ment, smiles  at  the  idea  of  a  fall  of  the  race  in  any  individual  in 
the  far  barbaric  past,  who  has  imposed  upon  us  all  the  task 
of  the  recovery  of  what  he  lost.  Ethics  finds  in  the  man  the 
nature  which  needs  realization.  Man's  salvation  is  not  in 
getting  something  ah  extra  but  in  the  realization  of  his  human 
nature.  Salvation  is  self-realization.  Human  goodness  is 
Christian  goodness.  "  Oh  to  be  nothing  "  is  not  a  healthy 
human  sentiment.  ''  Oh  to  be  something,"  is.  The  task  of  the 
Christian  is  not  the  annihilation  of  any  part  of  his  being,  but 
the  realization  of  all  that  is  within  him.  We  are  recognizing 
that  the  body  plays  an  important  part  in  our  life.  It  is  a 
divine  work  and  a  human  necessity.  There  is  a  physical  basis 
of  the  mental  life.  Talents  are  God-given  and  are  for  use. 
Culture  and  religion  are  friends.  Since  salvation  is  self-reali- 
zation, it  is  a  progressive  thing.  It  begins  in  an  act  of  will,  it 
continues  as  an  eternal  process.  The  progress  is  not,  however, 
a  running  after  "  a  flying  goal,"  but  it  is  life  within  the  sphere 
of  all  that  is  ethical  and  spiritual.  We  progress  in,  rather  than 
toward,  the  goods  of  the  soul.  Man  is  social.  He  is  made  for 
others  as  well  as  for  himself  and  for  God.  Therefore  salvation 
is  social.  This  truth  is  now  strongly  emphasized.  It  is  one  of 
the  dominant  ideas  of  our  time.  In  our  study  of  the  thought 
of  the  Christ,  his  idea  of  the  kingdom  is  playing  its  important 
part.  Man  lives  in  relations.  These  relations  produce  and 
necessitate  certain  institutions  and  interests.  All  are  being  eth- 
ically interpreted.      The  progress  of  ethical  thought  is  finally 


A  New  Orthodoxy  477 

illustrated  by  a  comparison  of  Adam  Smith's  Political  Econ- 
omy with  that  of  Professor  Marshall  We  are  placing  the 
same  moral  estimate  on  the  family,  the  neighbourhood  and  the 
state.  All  the  vital  interests  of  men  are  regarded  as  the  legiti- 
mate concern  of  the  theory  and  practice  of  Christianity.  There 
can  be  no  division  of  life  into  the  sacred  and  secular,  however 
much  the  priest  would  like  the  one  and  the  man  of  the  world 
the  other.  The  things  necessary  for  life  are  facts  and  factors 
in  the  kingdom  of  God. 

I  have  endeavoured  to  trace  some  of  the  greater  changes  in 
the  theology  of  to-day.     All  these  changes  result  from  and  bear 
witness  to  a  deeper  change  in  thought.   The  fundamental  truth 
which  we  find  in  literature,  no  less  than  in  theology,  is  the  in- 
herent and  organic  unity  prevailing  everywhere  and  controll- 
ing all  things.     This  explains  our  new  theism.     Everything 
in  nature  exists  because  of  its  vital  relation  to  God,  no  less  the 
moat  that  floats  in  the  sunbeam  than  the  sun  itself.    This  ex- 
plains and  is  evidenced  by  our  new  thought  of  revelation.  Every 
truth  that  quickens  the  mind  and  thrills  the  heart  of  the  reader 
of  the  Bible  first  quickened  and  thrilled  the  mind  and  heart  of 
the  man  who  gave  it  to  the  world,  and  he  obtained  it  because 
of  the  realization  of  his  vital  relation  to  God.     This  explains 
and  is  evidenced  by  our  thought  of  the  Christ.     He  was  the 
human  realization  of  God.     Fellowship  with  Him  then  and 
now,  uncovers  to  man  the  eternal  union  of  his  soul  with  God 
and  secures  a  spiritual  communion  between  the  child  and  the 
Father.     So  with  our  larger  thought  of  salvation.    The  whole 
man  lives  and  moves  and  has  his  being  in  God.    In  every  point 
of  his  being  there  is  a  meeting  ground  of  God.     And  no  less 
true  is  it  that  He  stands  in  the  same  vital  relation  with  men. 
The  same  is  true  of  our  thought  of  the  continued  moral  op- 
portunity for  the  salvation  of  men.    The  vital  and  organic  re- 
lation of  man  to  God  is  not  grounded  in  the  phenomenal,  in  the 
temporal,  but  in  the  essential  and  eternal  nature  of  the  man 
himself  and  in  the  nature  of  God. 


The  Trend  of  Theological  Thought  in 
England 


The  Trend  of  Theological  Thought 
in  England 

BY 

The  Reverend  R.  A.  ARMSTRONG 

TO  discriminate  and  state  the  Trend  of  Religious  Thought 
in  England  at  the  close  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  is  no 
easy  task.  To  make  the  statement  in  the  limits  assigned  to 
this  essay  is  harder  still ;  and  the  statement  when  made  can  be 
no  more  than  a  very  general  indication,  and  will  necessarily  be 
tinged  by  the  personal  idiosyncrasies,  beliefs  and  interests  of 
the  writer.  My  only  excuse  for  making  the  attempt  is  a  pro- 
found interest  in  the  problem  together  with  the  fact  that  I  have 
for  more  than  thirty  years  made  perpetual  endeavour  to  read  the 
signs  of  the  times  and  to  understand  the  movements  of  thought 
around  me. 

The  main  difficulty  lies  in  the  complexity  of  the  facts  to 
be  observed.  There  appears  such  confusion  in  the  religious 
world.  There  seem  to  be  so  many  cross-currents.  In  a  cal- 
dron of  seething  waters  it  is  hard  to  discern  a  stream.  Yet 
one  has  seen  such  boiling  masses  in  the  narrows  of  some  mighty 
river,  and  one  has  known  that  in  spite  of  their  sweltering  chaos, 
those  waters  were  really  hurrying  to  the  sea,  and  in  what  point 
of  the  compass  that  broad  sea  lay. 

To  what  distant  ocean,  then,  is  the  religious  thought  of  Eng- 
land moving,  caught  in  the  resistless  undercurrent,  though 
seeming  a  mere  whirlpool  with  disordered  waves  flung  object- 
less from  side  to  side? 

There  are  some  four  or  five  obvious  phenomena  which  have 
to  be  co-ordinated,  their  common  measure  found. 

First  and  most  obvious  of  these  is  the  Ritualist  and  Sacer- 
dotal movement. 

To  a  somewhat  superficial  observer  this  might  well  seem  the 

481 


482      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

one  characteristic  religious  phenomenon  of  our  time.  It  is 
but  a  few  years  since  the  Protestantism  of  England  was  an  in- 
contestable fact.  Paterfamilias  hated  priestcraft,  whether  he 
cared  much  for  Evangelical  teaching  or  not.  Ritualism  has 
come  in  with  a  rush.  The  appeal  to  the  senses,  by  music,  by 
vestment,  by  incense,  has  fairly  conquered  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, and  even  in  the  most  moderate  parishes  practices  are  fa- 
miliar now  which  would  have  scandalized  almost  every  one  a 
generation  ago.  And  far  graver  than  the  Ritualism  is  the 
Sacerdotalism.  Not  only  is  spiritual  doctrine  symbolized  to 
the  eye,  to  the  ear,  to  the  nose,  but  the  man  stands  between  the 
worshipper  and  God,  the  supernaturally  endowed  priest,  hold- 
ing the  keys  of  Heaven,  and  compelling  the  approach  of  the 
worshipper  to  God,  and  even  the  approach  of  God  to  the  wor- 
shipper, to  pass  through  the  doorway  of  his  own  person;  all 
other  communion  between  God  and  man  is  barred.  It  is  a 
tremendous  revolution,  but  it  is  a  revolution  which  has  been 
ruthlessly  carried  out  over  large  areas  of  England  in  the  last 
quarter  of  the  Nineteenth  Century. 

Side  by  side  with  the  Sacerdotal  development  has  proceeded 
the  intellectual  decay  of  Evangelicism.  In  spite  of  its  scorn 
of  "  carnal  reason  "  Evangelicism  in  the  past  has  produced 
doughty  and  vigorous  theologians.  It  is  now  in  England 
without  great  scholars  or  strong  thinkers.  Its  polemics  are 
extraordinarily  feeble,  its  reasoning  degenerating  often  to  mere 
shrewish  scolding.  It  still  gathers  in  its  thousands  and  tens 
of  thousands,  still  arrogates  to  itself  the  exclusive  title  of 
*' orthodox",  still  lets  the  Catholic,  the  Ritualist,  the  Uni- 
tarian, the  Agnostic  know  what  it  thinks  of  him  in  terms  not 
marked  by  courtesy  nor  always  by  humility.  But  the  looker 
on,  I  think  sees  pretty  clearly  that  as  an  orthodox  system 
it  is  rapidly  relaxing,  that  where  it  still  retains  the  nominal  alle- 
giance of  thinking  men,  those  men  have  practically  slipped  the 
creeds  and  fallen  into  certain  veins  of  somewhat  loose  and 
formless  liberalism  which  really  present  no  permanent  foothold 
for  the  religious  life. 


Trend  of  Theological  Thought  in  England    483 

Among  these  somewhat  loose  and  formless  veins  of  liberal- 
ism, the  most  interesting  is  that  which  may  be  summed  up  in 
the  phrase  so  common  on  many  lips  of  late,  "  Back  to  Jesus." 
When  the  Reformation  of  the  Sixteenth  century  ploughed  its 
way  through  the  Catholic  Church,  the  Reformers,  feeling  that 
the  authority  of  the  church  had  broken  down,  simply  fell  back 
on  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures. 

They  felt  no  need  to  construct  any  theory  to  justify  the  as- 
sumption of  that  authority.  The  atmosphere  around  them 
made  that  unnecessary.  It  was  the  natural  retreat  for  men 
who  had  abandoned  the  infallibility  of  the  church  and  it  was 
accepted  without  challenge  or  question.  And  just  so  now, 
when  men  bred  in  Evangelical  associations  discover  that  the 
absolute  authority  of  all  parts  of  Scripture  can  be  maintained 
no  longer,  they  are  simply  falling  back  on  the  authority  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  especially  of  the  spoken  words  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Nor  do  they  in  their  turn  feel  any  need  to  construct  a 
theory  to  justify  the  assumption  of  that  authority.  They 
breathe  an  atmosphere  in  which  that  seems  quite  unnecessary. 
The  authority  of  Jesus  is  the  natural  retreat  of  men  who  have 
abandoned  the  infallibility  of  the  Scriptures,  and  it  is  widely 
accepted  without  challenge  or  question.  And  the  men  of  the 
"  New  Orthodoxy  "  do  not  appear  to  see  that  there  is  a  pro- 
foundly difficult  critical  question  to  be  solved  before  we  can 
with  a  sense  of  repose  adopt  their  attitude ; — namely,  "  How 
are  we  to  know  which  are  actually  the  spoken  words  of  Jesus?  " 
— or  that  there  lies  behind  that  the  still  more  difficult  and  fun- 
damental question,  "  Why  are  we  to  accept  the  authority  of 
Jesus  Christ  at  all  ?  "  And  so  for  the  moment  this  school 
flourishes.  It  is  not  without  seduction  for  refined  and  spiritual 
natures.  It  has  cast  away  all  that  was  ugly  and  repulsive  in 
the  narrow  bigotries  of  earlier  Evangelical  and  Calvinistic 
schools.  It  robes  itself  with  all  the  gracious  and  gentle  emo- 
tion indissolubly  associated  with  the  name  of  Jesus.  But  it  is 
without  a  philosophical  or  intellectual  basis.  It  is  even  with- 
out the  sense  that  it  has  any  need  to  found  itself  on  such  a  basis. 


484      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

Therefore,  at  any  rate  in  my  view,  it  is  without  a  future,  and 
marks  merely  one  of  the  current  forms  of  spiritual  transition. 

And  then  side  by  side  with  the  growth  of  Sacerdotalism,  the 
intellectual  decay  of  Evangelicism,  and  the  temporary  popular- 
ity of  the  broad  and  liberal  "  New  Orthodoxy  ",  there  is  the 
steady  march  of  that  Agnosticism  which  has  grown  in  so  extra- 
ordinary a  degree  during  the  second  half  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury. Whether  we  like  it  or  not  there  is  no  use  in  disguising 
the  fact  that  large  numbers  of  men  and  women  are  more  and 
more  giving  up,  not  only  the  official  creeds,  but  all  positive  and 
definite  religious  belief.  I  do  not  refer  now  to  the  careless,  the 
flippant,  the  superficial,  but  to  men  and  women  among  the  most 
thoughtful,  the  most  earnest,  the  greatest  lovers  of  goodness 
that  exist.  Perhaps  few  men  have  such  opportunities  of  guag- 
ing  the  extent  of  this  special  type  of  Agnosticism  as  a  minister 
of  the  communion  itself  wholly  outside  the  ranks  of  reputed 
orthodoxy.  Neither  the  Church  of  England,  Priest,  nor  the 
preacher  of  salvation  through  the  blood  of  Christ,  is  likely  to 
receive  quite  such  frank  confidences  in  this  matter  as  he  re- 
ceives. And  profoundly  as  I  believe  in  God,  in  Prayer,  in  the 
communion  of  the  human  soul  with  the  Eternal  and  All-Holy, 
I  am  prepared  to  say  that  it  is  among  the  very  best  and  noblest 
men  and  women  whom  I  know  that  scepticism  about  all  this  is 
commonest  and  deepest. 

Now  for  all  these  very  marked  yet  on  the  surface  very  di- 
verse trends  of  religious  thought  in  England  of  to-day  there 
must  be,  I  think,  some  deep  underlying  common  cause ;  and  I 
believe  that  I  can  dimly  discern  its  nature  and  its  workings. 

It  is  a  commonplace  to  point  out  that  the  past  half  century 
has  been  marked  by  the  most  penetrating  revolution  in  thought 
that  the  world  has  ever  known.  That  method  of  thought  of 
which  the  watchword  is  Evolution  has  indeed  its  roots  far  back 
in  the  history  of  the  human  mind.  Its  beginnings  may  be 
traced  in  the  infancy  of  philosophy.  Its  influence  emerges 
again  and  again  in  the  successive  interpretations  which  observ- 
ers and  thinkers  have  given  to  the  universe.     But  it  is  never- 


Trend  of  Theological  Thought  in  England    485 

theless  true  that  only  within  the  memory  of  Hving  men  has  it 
saturated  the  common  consciousness  and  become  even  the  un- 
conscious organon  of  average  men  and  women.  Among  Eng- 
Hsh-speaking  peoples  this  vast  and  sweeping  change  of  con- 
ception is  indissolubly  connected  with  the  names  of  Charles 
Darwin  and  Herbert  Spencer.  And  there  are  millions  of  per- 
sons who  have  never  read  an  essay  or  an  article  by  either  of 
those  two  great  masters,  the  language  of  whose  minds  has 
nevertheless  been  translated  into  a  new  vernacular  through  the 
influence  of  what  those  masters  have  observed  and  thought  and 
written. 

The  result  is,  that  while  to  our  fathers  different  departments 
of  knowledge  appeared  to  present  no  common  elements,  and 
jumps,  jerks,  gaps,  lacunae,  in  the  succession  or  co-ordination 
of  phenomena  occasioned  no  intellectual  uneasiness,  the  typical 
man  of  to-day  instinctively  wants  to  find  all  departments  co- 
related  and  all  progressions  offering  a  smooth  and  unbroken 
continuity.  His  mind  is  not  in  equilibrium  until  he  can  grasp 
the  unity  between  phenomena  the  most  diverse ;  and  the  belief 
in  that  underlying  unity  is  the  master  instinct  of  his  under- 
standing. 

But  what  does  that  instinct  mean  in  the  sphere  of  religion? 
It  means  in  the  last  resort  that  there  is  no  ultimate  difference  in 
kind  between  Divine  revelation  and  the  revelations  of  human 
inquiry,  between  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  and  the  general  mass 
of  human  literature,  between  Jesus  Christ  and  other  mighty 
prophets  and  teachers  of  mankind.  And  that  means  that  the 
whole  outworks  and  bulwarks  of  orthodox  religion  break 
down. 

I  say  that  at  least  a  vague  consciousness  of  this  lies  to-day  at 
the  back  of  every  educated  mind.  What  then  is  the  result  on 
various  classes  of  mind  in  the  matter  of  religion  ? 

In  some  it  wakens  an  instinct  of  opposition  and  resistance 
lest  religion  itself  should  be  done  away.  And  that  is  the  source 
of  the  temporary  strength  and  vigor  of  the  Ritualistic  and  Sa- 
cerdotal movements.     Ritual  is  a  series  of  outworks  thrown  up 


486      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

to  retard  the  advance  of  the  invading  host.  To  keep  the  battle 
from  the  inmost  fortress,  and  in  half  conscious  recognition  that 
the  fortress  cannot,  at  least  with  the  old  weapons,  be  any  longer 
held,  symbols  of  the  spiritual  are  multiplied  to  occupy  the  imag- 
ination and  to  divert  any  wakening  suspicion  of  the  emptiness 
of  the  central  shrine.  It  is  men  whose  faith  has  become  dim  con- 
cerning the  inmost  spiritual  sanctities,  the  veritable  touch  of  the 
individual  human  soul  with  God,  that  erect  images  appealing  to 
the  senses  to  engage  the  attention  and  feed  the  spiritual  life. 
And  in  like  manner  all  attempts  to  concentrate  the  consciences 
of  men  on  the  priest  and  his  spiritual  thaumaturgy  are  instinc- 
tive efforts  to  hold  back  the  public  mind  from  inquiry  as  to  the 
veritable  reality  of  the  unseen  God.  The  Holy  of  Holies  in  the 
Jewish  cult  retained  its  awful  sanctity  only  by  being  guarded 
and  surrounded  by  court  after  court  of  the  Temple  with  its 
ceremonials  and  its  sacraments.  Once  let  the  layman  pierce 
through  and  open  the  door  of  the  Ark  itself,  and  the  solemn 
sanction  would  be  gone.  In  like  manner,  I  believe  that  the 
whole  High  Church  movement  though  among  its  leaders  and 
its  servants  are  men  of  the  loftiest  devotion,  is  unconsciously  at 
bottom  a  movement  of  the  profoundest  scepticism  which  can- 
not trust  the  soul  to  find  its  pilgrim  way  to  the  breast  of  the 
living  God. 

And  the  intellectual  decay  of  Evangelicism,  which  I  have 
noted  as  the  second  broad  fact  in  the  present  religious  move- 
ment in  England,  is  due  no  less  to  the  hold  that  the  great 
Evolution  idea  has  got  on  the  English  mind.  For  the 
"  Scheme  "  the  "  plan  ",  the  contrivance  of  a  special  mode  of 
salvation  which  is  the  very  basis  of  the  so-called  Evangelical 
Christianity  is  the  flat  contradiction  of  the  Evolution  concep- 
tion. Evangelicism  is  in  its  essence  a  system  of  the  special,  the 
unique ;  but  the  Evolution  idea  discourages  belief  in  the  special, 
the  unique.  It  views  history  as  a  drama  slowly  unrolling  from 
primordial  beginnings  in  the  birth  of  time.  But  Evangelicism 
asks  for  belief  in  a  sudden  and  extraordinary  revolution  in  the 
history  of  mankind  at  a  particular  moment  in  the  centuries, — 


Trend  of  Theological  Thought  in  England    487 

an  absolute  and  penetrating  change  in  the  very  relation  of  God 
to  man, — to  say  nothing  of  its  affirmation  of  a  special  and 
miraculous  scripture  and  a  unique  Son  of  God  without  a 
brother  in  the  universe.  I  do  not  say  that  Evangelicism  is  im- 
possible to  a  mind  that  has  grasped  the  conception  of  Evo- 
lution. But  I  do  say  that  that  conception  puts  the  greatest  ob- 
stacle in  the  way  of  Evangelicism  and  weakens  its  hold  on 
cultured  men. 

That  *'  New  Orthodoxy  ",  that  "  Back  to  Jesus  ",  movement 
to  which  I  have  referred  as  the  third  element  in  the  contem- 
porary religious  movement  finds  its  origin  in  the  same  intel- 
lectual phenomenon.  It  is  the  attempt  of  Evangelicism  to 
throw  off  its  impedimenta,  or  as  many  of  them  as  may  be  pos- 
sible, while  still  retaining  its  characteristic  attitude  towards 
Jesus.  For  a  time  it  will  serve.  But  it  has  only  pushed  the 
difficulty  back  a  little  way.  And  it  cannot  be  long  before  it  feels 
itself  confronted  by  the  like  unescapable  dilemma  as  the  full 
"  orthodoxy  "  which  it  endeavors  to  replace. 

It  needs  no  proof  that  the  Agnosticism  enumerated  above  as 
the  fourth  among  the  characteristics  of  our  time  is  due  to  the 
strength  amongst  us  of  the  doctrine  of  Evolution.  There  is 
indeed  no  real  incompatibility  between  the  fullest  acceptance  of 
Evolution  and  the  deepest  and  loftiest  religious  faith.  But  the 
Churches  have  so  inextricably  involved  religion  with  ideas 
which  the  Evolutionist  cannot  digest  that  few  minds  are  able 
to  undo  the  tangle,  and  for  a  while  religious  faith  goes  over- 
board along  with  the  unscientific  view  of  human  history  Ec- 
clesiastics have  propounded.  I  would  only  observe  that,  while 
a  generation  ago,  in  the  first  passion  of  revolution,  scientific 
thought  drifted  continually  towards  a  dogmatic  materialism, 
it  is  even  now  becoming  conscious  of  hints  and  suggestions  in 
the  womb  of  nature,  herself,  which  the  materialistic  hypothesis 
can  never  meet. 

And  this  is  the  turning  point  of  our  diagnosis.  The  ex- 
pressions of  awe  and  wonder,  as  in  the  presence  of  an  unsolved 
mystery,  which  escape  more  frequently  from  the  lips  of  scien- 


488     Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

tific  men  are  the  first  bits  of  drift-wood  seen  making  strange 
headway  against  what  seemed  the  strongest  set  of  the  current, 
and  reveaHng  a  yet  stronger  current  underneath. 

The  sketch  which  my  few  paragraphs  have  given  of  sundry 
movements  of  our  time  might  seem  to  indicate  that  scepticism, 
the  essential  spirit  of  unbeHef,  is  the  master  force  of  our  age. 
A  closer  examination  reveals  that  it  is  not  so.  From  the 
depths  of  the  consciousness  of  the  community  there  is  emerging 
more  clearly  every  year  a  profound  demand  for  positive  re- 
ligion and  a  waxing  faith  that  there  is  religion  for  us  yet.  It 
is  coming  to  be  dimly  felt  that  the  religious  life  is  as  essential  to 
man  as  the  physical,  the  intellectual,  or  the  ethical,  that  the 
spiritual  element  in  humanity  cannot  be  neglected  or  ignored, 
and  that  corresponding  to  that  element  in  man  and  meeting 
that  demand  there  must  be  and  is  provision  in  the  spiritual  uni- 
verse outside  the  human  soul.  And  the  more  that  spiritual  fact 
which  is  to  satisfy  the  perennial  craving  takes  to  itself  form  and 
color,  the  more  it  is  discerned  that  it  is  no  other  than  the  ex- 
istence of  an  Eternal  Being  who  may  be  dimly  suggested  by 
such  words  as  "  Father  ''  *'  Holy  Spirit  "  "  God  ",— One,  who 
whatever  else  He  be,  is  the  Great  Deep  in  whom  we  all  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being,  and  who  bestows  on  us.  His  crea- 
tures and  His  children,  the  wondrous  gift  of  Eternal  Life, 
which  may  brighten  out  into  conscious  and  blessed  communion 
with  Him. 

The  sceptical  movement — strong  as  it  has  been  and  is — yet  is 
in  a  sense  superficial.  It  has  cleared  and  is  clearing  away  ele- 
ments which  have  served  their  purpose,  many  of  which  doubt- 
less helped  to  conserve  the  precious  essence  through  ages  of 
storm  and  stress,  but  have  no  place  in  the  permanent  life  of  re- 
ligion. Religion  has  been  throwing  off  ingredients  which 
marred  its  purity  and  must  ultimately,  if,  retained  in  the  sys- 
tem, have  imperiled  its  life.  It  will  show  itself  presently  the 
sounder  and  stronger  for  the  process. 

The  Trend  of  Religious  Thought  in  England  is,  through 
a  searching  and  sometimes  dark  and  painful  scepticism,  to- 


Trend  of  Theological  Thought  in  England    489 

wards  that  ''  Absolute  Religion  ",  that  communionism  of  the 
soul  with  the  Heavenly  Father,  which  gave  the  predominant 
note  to  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  nineteen  hundred 
years  ago. 


The  Modern  Trend  in  Eschatology 


The  Modern  Trend  in  Eschatology 

BY 

The  Reverend  HUGH  O.   ROWLANDS,  D.D 

THIS  paper  does  not  purport  to  give  the  writer's  own 
views  on  the  subject  discussed;  much  less  is  it  a  de- 
fense of,  or  an  attack  on  the  opinions  of  others.  I  shall  en- 
deavour to  give  as  an  observer  what  seems  to  be  the  drift  of 
modern  Christian  thought  on  this  great  question,  such  part 
of  it  as  concerns  the  doom  of  incorrigibles,  or  the  "  unsaved," 
after  death.  I  shall  not  burden  the  paper  with  references  to 
authors  and  books.  Usually  the  preacher  and  the  author  are 
special  attorneys  pleading  for  one  side  of  the  case  or  attacking 
the  other. 

The  newspaper,  the  novel,  the  sermon,  and  magazine  dis- 
cussions of  the  question,  are  evidence  of  the  deep  and  often 
unconscious  faith  men  have  in  future  immortality,  as  shells 
and  pebbles  on  the  beach  are  proofs  of  the  inrolling  waves 
from  the  deep  and  mysterious  sea. 

The  very  existence  of  different  views  and  conclusions 
among  the  learned,  the  good,  and  the  great  in  all  ages  should 
preclude  intolerant  dogmatizing.  Reverent  Bible  students, 
men  profound  in  the  history  of  Christian  Dogmatics  and  zeal- 
ous propagandists  of  the  Christian  faith,  whose  piety  and  de- 
voutness  were  unquestioned,  have  been  far  from  being  unani- 
mous in  their  understanding,  deductions  and  conclusions  re- 
specting this  question.  This  fact  shows  conclusively  that  the 
revelations  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  are  not  so  full  and  clear 
as  to  put  the  question  beyond  controversy.  Hence  the  need  of 
charity  and  catholic  toleration;  reverent  and  unobstrusive 
doubt  of  any  position  should  place  no  one  outside  the  pale  of 
Christian  fellowship.  It  should  not  be  made  a  test  of  fitness 
— or  unfitness — for  church  membership.  I  could  conceive  of 
conditions  where  it  ought  not  to  be  made  a  test  for  an  ordina- 

493 


494      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

tion  to  the  Christian  ministry,  or  an  appointment  to  the  mis- 
sionary field. 

I  name  a  few  of  the  "  trunk  lines  "  of  various  beliefs  that 
prevail  and  the  favor  in  which  they  are  held,  or  considered  by 
different  "  schools  "  of  Christians. 


I  place  the  word  in  quotation  marks  to  save  myself  from  a 
charge  of  assuming  that  the  views  inculcated  under  that  name 
are  the  right  teaching.  The  man  who  dies  unrepentant  and 
unsaved  is  irretrievably  and  everlastingly  lost  to  blessedness 
and  happiness;  this  lost  condition  is  one  of  conscious,  un- 
utterable, and  endless  anguish  in  the  torments  of  hell.  No 
mercy  will  be  ever  offered,  and  if  it  were  offered  the  very  ca- 
pability of  the  lost  soul  to  profit  thereby  is  destroyed. 

This  condition  is  not  so  much  the  provision  of  divine  jus- 
tice; but  the  wilfully  chosen  self-banishment  of  the  sufferer 
from  God.  It  is  Hell  because  he  is  out  of  harmony  with  his 
Environment — God.  No  one  is  lost  but  out  of  wilful  rejec- 
tion of  Jesus  Christ  who  is  the  Light  and  Life  of  men.  Hell  is 
both  retributive  of  sin  and  exhibitive  of  divine  justice,  hence 
it  is  subjective  and  objective  in  its  elements. 

Theories  of  the  methods  and  nature  of  future  retribution 
such  as  "  lake  of  fire,"  "  brimstone,"  etc.,  must  be  eliminated 
from  the  teaching  of  modem  orthodoxy ;  they  are  the  remnants 
of  a  by-gone  literalistic,  materialistic  age  and  of  the  legalistic, 
Latinic  church  in  distinction  from  the  spiritual  Greek  church. 
They  are  associated  with  orthodoxy  by  its  adversaries  for 
the  purpose  of  caricature  and  ridicule.  That  a  sporadic 
few  "  orthodox  "  people  believe  in  those  lurid  details  is  pos- 
sible; but  no  party  should  be  judged  as  to  its  princi- 
ples by  the  extravagancies  and  frenzies  of  a  few  of  its  least 
representative  adherents,  nor  by  the  caricatures  of  its  oppo- 
nents. It  is  needless  to  write  that  the  orthodox  view  of  this 
question  is  professedly  got  from  the  Scriptures;  on  them  en- 
tirely its  supporters  depend  for  authority. 


The  Modern  Trend  in  Eschatology         495 

COMMENTS 

Does  the  Bible  teach  such  a  dogma?  It  certainly  appears 
so  to  a  multitude  of  zealous  and  pious  Christians.  Revivals, 
missions,  the  impassioned  appeals  of  great  evangelists  have 
been  greatly  quickened,  inspired  and  intensified  by  this  dread 
belief.  The  strange  parable  of  the  ''  sheep  and  the  goats  "  re- 
corded in  the  Gospel  according  to  Matthew  seems  to  teach 
this  doctrine  explicitly;  so  also  Matthew  18:  8,  9;  other  pas- 
sages from  the  Scriptures  seem  to  teach  or  imply  the  senti- 
ments with  more  or  less  clearness. 

However,  let  it  be  remembered  that  a  large  number  of  holy, 
learned  Bible  students  believe  that  those  parts  of  the  Scrip- 
tures on  fair  exegesis  are  capable  of  other  and  widely  different 
explanations  and  construction. 

Moreover,  there  is  an  irrepressible  rebellion  in  the  heart  and 
consciousness  of  man  against  the  orthodox  deductions  from 
Scriptures  on  this  subject.  The  "  intuitional  intelligence " 
of  the  soul  protests  against  them.  Look  at  it!  think  of  its 
dread,  unutterable  meaning!  The  lost  soul  (numbered  by  the 
millions),  by  virtue  and  authority  of  an  irreversible  law  in  his 
nature,  which  is  a  Divine  fiat,  is  devoted  to  a  condition  in 
which  with  every  pulsation  of  existence  he  becomes  more  guilty 
and  depraved.  Farther  and  farther  from  holiness,  from  God, 
and  from  hope  he  sweeps  like  an  anarchistic  comet  of  perdition. 
With  every  throb  of  being  he  becomes  more  satanic  in  ambi- 
tion, more  infernal  in  passion,  and  more  hateful  toward  his 
Creator;  bloating  with  the  unending  torments  of  fermenting 
remorse ;  this  process  going  on  for  one  year,  for  a  century,  for 
ten  thousand — ten  millions  of  cycles  of  the  eternal  aeons; 
let  each  second  of  those  periods  represent  so  many  aeons  still 
coming,  and  when  those  dread  eternities  are  spent  the  lost  soul 
is  only  on  the  threshold  of  its  existence  careering  into  ever- 
deepening  Endlessness.  If  at  the  close  of  a  million  times 
those  periods  we  could  discern  a  gleam  of  hope  hinting  that  in 
a  nameless  future  there  was  an  end  to  the  foaming,  gurgling 


496      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

misery  of  the  lost  it  would  be  a  satisfaction;  but  no!  the 
darkness  is  denser  and  murkier  as  we  look  ahead !  And  all  of 
this  for  the  glory  of  a  Heavenly  Father  and  the  satisfaction  of 
a  justice  whose  ideal  and  embodiment  is  Himself!  It  would 
not  seem  possible  that  men  could  believe  such  a  doctrine  and 
teach  it  as  within  the  limits  of  a  benevolent  God's  government 
The  trend  is  away  from  it.  The  evangelical  pulpit  is  slow  to 
preach  it.  Evangelists  do  not  appeal  to  it  as  did  Edwards, 
Swan,  Knapp.  Moody  never  preached  it.  In  cold,  logical 
controversy  it  may  be  stoutly  defended;  but  in  the  message 
of  the  pulpit  it  is  held  as  a  ''  background  of  mystery." 

UNIVERSALISM 

Old-fashioned  Universalism  has  in  later  years  taken  upon 
itself  the  hue  of  restorationism.  Formerly  it  was  taught  that 
men  are  adequately  punished  in  this  life  for  all  their  sins; 
death  ended  all  suffering  as  the  result  of  transgression,  and 
was  the  strait  gate  that  led  into  blessedness  and  bliss.  The 
pains  of  the  final  dissolution  were  the  Jesus  that  redeemed  the 
soul  and  not  the  Jesus  of  Calvary.  The  dying  transgressor 
took  a  draught  of  Lethe,  and  was  at  once  relieved  from  the 
guilt  and  memory  of  sin  and  entered  the  abode  of  the  Holy 
and  Good. 

So  contrary  to  Scriptures,  so  repugnant  to  reason,  and  so 
repellant  to  every  intuition  and  instinct  of  justice  was  that 
teaching  that  intelligent  Universalists  no  longer  teach  or  fa- 
ther it.  It  was  the  extreme  swing  of  the  pendulum  from  the 
Edwardian  Eschatology  of  New  England — one  as  repugnant 
as  the  other.  Restorationism  qualifies  Universalism.  Men 
shall  reap  what  they  sow.  All  wrong-doing  shall  be  punished 
here  or  hereafter.  The  incorrigible  soul  at  death  enters 
*'  hell  " ;  but  this  is  not  retribution ;  it  is  a  purgatory,  a  condi- 
tion of  discipline  and  reform  where  under  new  masters  and  dis- 
cipline, in  better  environments,  he  is  educated,  disciplined,  and 
finally  delivered.  Time  is  no  element  of  the  disciplinary 
course;    it  may  be  an  hour  or  an  aeon;   but  it  will  be  a  con- 


The  Modern  Trend  in  Eschatology        497 

stantly  progressive  process  of  purification  and  perfection.  At 
last  all  men  will  be  restored  into  the  image  of  God,  into  holiness 
and  blessedness;  God  will  be  all  in  all.  The  whole  race  of 
man  redeemed  and  glorified. 

COMMENTS 

This  view  has  never  taken  a  firm  hold  on  the  conscience  and 
conviction  of  the  Christian  world.  It  has  been  popular  in  the 
measure  the  opposite  extreme  was  urged.  It  has  been  a  hope 
and  sentiment  rather  than  a  conviction  or  a  statement  of  re- 
vealed truth;  it  is  a  protest  rather  than  a  vigorous,  construc- 
tive faith. 

The  teachings  of  Scriptures  are  not  favorable  to  it;  the 
great  majority  of  its  ardent  advocates  fail  to  accept  the  Scrip- 
tures as  infallible  authority  of  truth ;  it  is  considered  by  many 
of  its  advocates  as  extra-biblical,  an  evolution  of  moral  con- 
sciousness; a  sentiment  of  the  benevolent  heart  rather  than  a 
deduction  from  Holy  Scriptures. 

Many  oppose  this  view  because,  as  they  claim,  it  is  contra- 
dicted by  all  analogies  of  the  material  and  physical  world 
wherein  violations  of  natural  laws  are  venial  only  to  a  certain 
point;  beyond  that  suffering  is  not  remedial,  but  retributive 
Illustrations  of  this  principle  are, — transgressions  against  the 
laws  of  the  body  which  may  be  forgiven  to  a  certain  mark  of 
severity  and  persistence,  beyond  which  they  are  fatal.  True  that 
natural,  or  psychical  laws  may  not  be  identical  with  the  spirit- 
ual, yet  there  is  a  close  analogy — some  scholars  claim  identity. 
This  principle  of  irremediableness  is  recognized  in  the  socio- 
logical, or  legal  phrase, — degenerates.  The  great  poets,  dra- 
matists and  novelists  recognize  the  fact  of  irremediable  de- 
pravity by  consigning  their  villains  to  final  destruction.  Fur- 
thermore, it  is  claimed  that  acceptance  of  this  view  is  usually 
associated  with  a  low  estimate  of  holiness  and  a  light  estimate 
of  the  guilt  and  virulence  of  sin.  Its  opponents  say  ''  it  cuts 
the  nerve  of  missions  by  making  sin  an  error  of  ignorance,  or 
the  blunder  of  weakness,  rather  than  a  guilty  violation  of  the 


498      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

law  of  justice,  holiness,  and  benevolence  as  manifested  in  God. 
It  is  claimed  that  the  implications  of  this  view  are  injurious  to 
morals;  it  eliminates  the  element  of  prudence  as  a  motive  of 
right  living;  while  that  is  not  the  highest  motive  still  it  is  a 
proper  one,  since  it  is  implanted  in  human  nature. 

This  view  is  an  argument  that  God  does  not  in  the  present 
life  and  world  furnish  the  strongest  influences  for  the  redemp- 
tion of  men  from  sin ;  for,  if  men  who  refuse  to  repent  and  be 
converted  here  under  the  preaching  of  Christ  and  influences  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  are  saved  after  death,  it  must  be  there  are  more 
favorable  environments  in  waiting  after  death.  Stimulated  by 
this  delusion  men  adjourn  the  care  and  preparation  they  should 
give  their  spiritual  conditions.  Hence  "  liberal  "  churches  are 
barren  of  converts.  They  seldom  bear  offspring;  but  their 
membership  is  often  of  the  "  lost,  strayed,  or  stolen  "  of  evan- 
gelical homes  and  churches. 


This  is  an  annex  of  Universalism.  It  claims  that  those  who 
have  not  heard  of  Christ  during  their  earth-life  shall  have  an 
opportunity  after  death ;  hence  there  is  a  future  probation  for 
the  heathen.  This  view  rises  from  the  unreasonable  and  un- 
scriptural  hypothesis  that  all  to  whom  Christ  has  not  been 
preached  are  lost.  Whereas  final  condemnation  is  not  based 
on  unbelief;  but  on  dis-belief.  Men  will  be  condemned 
not  because  they  received  not  the  Light,  but  having  received  it 
they  rejected  it,  and  loved  and  chose  the  Darkness.  The  hea- 
then are  not  without  the  Light  (the  most  catholic  title  of 
Jesus),  for  "He  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world,'*  and  they  like  all  men  will  be  judged  according  to  the 
light  they  received. 

ANNIHILATION 

This  view  is  accepted  by  many  as  the  best  solution  of  the 
problem.  It  is  argued  that  it  is  a  scriptural  solution;  that  it 
is  in  harmony  with  the  laws  of  the  natural  universe,  and  that 
it  is  an  escape  from  the  burdens  other  creeds  place  on  the  hu- 


The  Modern  Trend  in  Eschatology        499 

man  heart  and  reason.  This  view  claims  that  God  alone  hath 
immortality  (i  Tim.  6:  16)  inherently  and  naturally.  Man's 
assurance  of  immortality  at  his  creation  was  conditioned  on  his 
being  in  harmony  and  union  with  God ;  that  lost— death  seized 
him.  Christ  came  to  restore  man  into  peace  with  God,  hence 
to  reattain  the  lost  life.  By  faith  in  Him  men  are  reunited  to 
God  and  the  life  of  God  enters  them.  Thus  the  lost  immor- 
tality is  found  in  Christ  who  came  that  "  men  might  have  life 
and  have  it  more  abundantly  " ;  and  they  who  accept  Christ, 
though  spiritually  dead,  shall  live  again  in  Him. 

On  the  other  hand  sin  is  corruption  and  death,  and  the  soul 
that  sinneth  shall  die.  As  disease  destroys  the  physical  life  so 
sin  destroys  the  spiritual.  The  process  of  destruction  may  be 
slow, — but  the  end  will  be  the  annihilation  of  personality  and 
identity.  At  last,  since  sin  has  no  identity,  per  se,  and  is  but 
the  disposition  of  the  sinner,  it  will  be  utterly  destroyed  with 
him;  righteousness  and  truth  shall  fill  the  earth,  and  to  Him 
every  knee  shall  bow  and  tongue  confess.  Those  of  this  faith 
claim  that  it  avoids  the  "  enervating  heresies  of  restoration- 
ism  "  and  the  terrible  forebodings  of  endless  torments.  It  is 
a  theory  that  prevails  widely  in  England,  especially  among 
Congregationalists.  The  last  utterances  of  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  on  this  subject  partake  of  this  conclusion.  Preaching 
on  the  text,  "  Be  not  deceived :  God  is  not  mocked  ",  etc  (Gal. 
6:  7-9),  he  said:  "  He  that  lives  to  the  flesh  shall  of  the  flesh 
reap  corruption — shall.  It  is  sure  to  come.  What  shall  it 
be?  Future  torment?  No,  I  do  not  mean  that;  I  mean  that 
he  that  cultivates  his  lower  nature,  mere  animal  nature,  with 
the  animal  perishes.  ...  It  is  to  my  mind  a  relief  that  if  a 
man  never  rises  any  higher  than  the  animal  life — the  Universe 
will  never  see  a  God  enthroned  that  looks  down  upon  the  in- 
finite and  prolonged  torments  of  an  unconceived  number  of 
men  shut  up  simply  for  the  purpose  of  suffering.  If  there  be 
anything  more  infidel  than  that  I  do  not  know  what  it  is,  or 
anything  which  more  effectually  blots  out  the  possibility  of 
respecting  and  loving  any  God  than  this, — continuing  to  create 


500      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

men  with  some  foresight  of  their  perpetual  suffering."  Felix 
Adler  in  one  of  his  lectures  said  that  there  are  "  men  incapable 
of  religion  which  of  course  makes  them  incapable  of  the  crown- 
ing blessings  of  religion — eternal  life;  the  end  of  such  men 
must  be  death/' 

THE   TEACHINGS   OF    CHRIST 

With  those  various  theories  contrast  the  sublime  awfulness 
and  simplicity  of  the  teachings  of  our  Saviour.  He  spoke  as 
"  one  having  authority,"  and  not  like  theorizers,  and  theolo- 
gians; and  from  His  revelations  solely  can  the  knowledge  of 
this  subject  be  secured.  The  sacred  Epistles  only  echo  His 
words.  He  certainly  did  not  intend  the  symbols  He  used 
to  be  interpreted  literally,  for  often  they  are  destructive 
of  each  other.  His  words  do  not  determine  the  nature,  the 
methods,  or  the  duration  of  retribution.  He  emphasized  the 
fact  with  incomparable  strenuousness ;  He  closed  none  of  His 
great  sermons  without  referring  to  it;  He  stood  beneath  the 
"  cope  of  the  eternal  world  "  and  removed  the  curtain,  then  He 
pointed  to  the  two  great  facts  of  the  future  of  men, — Rewards 
and  Retribution.  He  did  not  argue  about  them,  nor  explain 
them  nor  reconcile  them  with  divine  benevolence,  but  declared 
them  to  be  verities  as  real  as  man's  immortality.  So  vivid 
were  the  awful  facts  to  Him  that  His  eyes  moistened  and  His 
lips  quivered  when  he  urged  men  to  be  prepared  to  meet  God 
in  peace.  He  claimed  He  had  come  from  His  Father's  bosom 
lo  earth's  sorrow  and  death,  not  to  teach  theology,  not  to  es- 
tablish a  church,  but  "  to  seek  and  save  the  lost."  He  taught 
sublime  morals,  gave  new  ideals  of  manhood ;  He  revealed  the 
fatherhood  of  God,  and  blessed  the  world  with  a  new  religion, 
— but  all  this  was  to  save  men  from  sin  and  its  unspeakable 
consequences.  From  the  teachings  of  Jesus  I  conclude  that  the 
retribution  of  sin  is  '*  eternal."  How  explain  that  term  ?  I  do 
not  explain  it.  Is  there  probation  after  death?  Christ  gave 
no  message  to  that  purpose.  Is  the  penalty  of  sin  endless  tor- 
ment?    The  heart  and  reason  of  man  protest  against  such  a 


The  Modern  Trend  in  Eschatology         501 

dispensation.  Then  will  sin  at  last  utterly  destroy  (aTroXvciv) 
the  identity  and  personality  of  the  incorrigible  soul?  This  is 
not  clearly  revealed.  A  vital  element  of  the  awfulness  and 
dread  of  retribution  is  the  impenetrable  mystery  which  hides 
from  us  its  methods  and  nature, — the  FACT  alone  is  unmis- 
takably and  emphatically  revealed,  the  silence  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures  about  its  nature,  methods,  and  duration  makes 
it  more  sublimely  grand  and  dread.  The  known  truth  with  its 
application  on  this  subject  is  summarized  by  an  ancient  evan- 
gelist in  these  words :  "  For  we  must  all  appear  before  the 
judgment-seat  of  Christ  that  every  one  may  receive  the  things 
done  in  the  body  according  to  that  he  hath  done,  whether  it  be 
good  or  bad ;  knowing  therefore  the  terror  of  the  Lord  we  per- 
suade men."     II  Cor.  5:  10,  11. 


Progressive  Liberalism   in  the  Closing  and 
the  Opening  Century 


Progressive  Liberalism  in  the  Closing 
and  the  Opening  Century* 

BY 

CHARLES  W.   ELIOT,  LL.D. 

THE  first  thing  to  be  observed  about  progressive  liberalism  in 
the  closing  century  is  that  it  is  characterized  essentially 
by  a  series  of  slow,  gradual,  and  related  developments,  and  not 
by  a  succession  of  sudden,  spasmodic,  and  unconnected  shocks. 
In  the  opening  century  it  is  sure  to  be  characterized  by  a  slow 
quiet,  giving  effect  to  a  few  ideas  not  new  in  themselves,  but 
new  in  respect  to  diffused  acceptance.  I  shall  deal  with  only 
four  aspects  of  the  broad  subject. 

I.  One  deep-striking  change  to  which  liberalism  has  con- 
tributed is  the  change  in  Protestant  opinions  concerning  the 
Bible.  The  Reformation  substituted  for  the  infallibility  of  an 
institution  and  its  official  representative — an  institution  vast, 
varying,  complex,  pervasive,  and,  on  occasion,  vague — another 
infallibility, — namely,  the  infallibility  of  a  small,  unchanging, 
compact,  apprehensible  collection  of  ancient  writings — the 
Bible.  Contending  vigorously  against  the  infallibility  of  the 
Church  and  the  Pope,  it  set  up  the  verbally-inspired,  inerrant 
Bible  as  infallible  authority.  Fortunately  the  Reformation 
taught  that  the  humblest  Christian  might  have  direct  access  to 
this  infallible  Scripture ;  and,  therefore,  it  ultimately  set  up  the 
human  reason  as  the  legitimate  interpreter  of  this  new  in- 
fallibility. Now  the  human  reason  since  the  Reformation  has 
not  only  added  wonderfully  to  its  stores  of  knowledge,  but 
has  also  developed  greatly  its  penetrating  and  exploring  power. 
Some  new  sciences  have  arisen;  the  old  sciences  of  philology 
and  history  have  made  astonishing  progress;  and  the  general 

*  This  essay  has  no  application  whatever  to  the  great  Greek  and  Roman 
communions,  those  Churches  being  founded  on  an  unqualified  authority 
which  does  not  recognize  the  right  of  private  judgment.  It  relates  exclu- 
sively to  the  Protestant  communions. 


506      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

method  of  inductive  reasoning  has  been  applied  during  the 
nineteenth  century  more  widely  and  with  much  greater  success 
than  ever  before.  The  languages  of  Scripture  and  the  litera- 
tures written  in  those  languages  are  far  better  known  now  than 
they  were  before  the  present  century ;  the  other  sacred  writings 
of  the  world  have  become  known  to  the  Christian  nations; 
the  history  of  Egypt,  Palestine,  Greece,  and  the  Roman  Em- 
pire has  been  illuminated  by  modern  archaeological  research; 
and  the  natural  sciences  have  demonstrated  countless  facts,  and 
have  established  a  few  general  principles,  which  throw  a  flood 
of  light  backward  on  to  the  beliefs  and  practices  of  former 
generations  and  the  real  history  of  the  human  race  on  this 
earth.  Gradually  there  has  appeared  a  new  critical  spirit  to- 
wards the  Bible  and  the  supernatural  side  of  religion.  What 
is  called  the  higher  criticism  is  nothing  but  the  application  to 
the  Bible  of  methods  of  research  which  have  been  successfully 
applied  to  other  bodies  of  ancient  historical  and  literary  com- 
positions. 

Naturally,  the  influence  of  these  new  powers  and  new 
growths  is  to-day  felt  chiefly  by  scholars  and  reading  people; 
nevertheless,  the  popular  mind  also  is  not  without  preparation 
for  the  acceptance  of  new  views  concerning  revelation  and 
supernaturalism  in  general.  In  the  first  place,  all  people  have 
gradually  learned  to  look  always  for  a  natural  explanation  of 
the  marvellous;  and  secondly,  they  are  thoroughly  habituated 
to  incomprehensible  or  mysterious  efiPects  which  they  firmly 
believe  to  be  due  to  natural  causes,  although  they  do  not  in  the 
least  understand  the  modes  in  which  the  effects  are  produced. 
Thus,  the  comet  and  the  eclipse  have  lost  their  terrors  even  for 
the  most  ignorant.  All  men  are  persuaded  that  these  phe- 
nomena portend  nothing,  being  due  to  natural,  though  un- 
comprehended,  causes.  The  entire  audience  at  a  magician's 
show  is  firmly  persuaded  that  there  is  no  magic  in  the  per- 
formance, but  only  skill.  The  familiar  miracle  of  driving  a 
street  car  by  an  invisible  force,  brought  miles  on  a  wire,  though 
entirely  incomprehensible  to  the  common  mind,  is  universally 


Progressive  Liberalism  507 

believed  to  be  a  purely  natural  phenomenon.  In  short,  many 
effects  once  called  miraculous  or  magical,  are  now  accepted  as 
purely  natural ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  many  effects  known  to 
be  natural  are  just  as  mysterious  and  wonderful  as  most  of  the 
occurrences  described  in  former  centuries  as  miracles.  This 
state  of  the  popular  mind,  which  has  been  chiefly  developed 
during  the  nineteenth  century,  has  prepared  the  way  for  the 
acceptance  of  new  views  concerning  the  Bible  and  the  super- 
natural in  religion. 

Again,  all  through  this  closing  century  the  relative  im- 
portance of  fact  in  comparison  with  theory  or  speculation  has 
been  mounting.  Down  to  the  present  century  the  prevalence 
of  myth,  fable,  and  imaginative  narration  has  characterized  the 
most  precious  literatures ;  and  even  history  until  lately  has  had 
highly  imaginative  elements.  Of  late  years  history  has  become 
realistic,  and  even  fiction  is  photographic  in  quality.  This 
preference  for  facts  has  grown  stronger  and  stronger  during 
the  closing  century,  and  is  likely  to  be  still  more  characteristic 
of  the  opening.  Indeed,  theory  and  speculation  are  almost 
discredited,  except  in  a  hypothesis  which  temporarily  or  pro- 
visionally explains  or  correlates  a  group  of  facts.  Even  in 
such  cases  the  hypothesis  is  avowedly  accepted  on  sufferance 
and  with  suspicion. 

Still  further,  we  observe  that  in  the  present  generation, 
broad  and  hasty  generalizations  from  few  particulars,  and  im- 
mense superstructures  on  small,  slight  foundations  are  in 
modern  instances  almost  universally  derided.  They  do  not 
excite  indignation  or  scorn ;  they  excite  ridicule  and  contempt. 
Now  the  hugest  superstructure  ever  reared  on  a  diminutive 
foundation,  and  the  most  formidable  speculation  ever  based  on 
a  minimum  of  doubtful  fact,  is  the  Augustinian  systematic 
theology,  resting  on  the  literal  truth  of  the  story  in  Genesis 
about  the  disobedience  of  Eve  and  Adam  in  the  Garden  of 
Eden.  The  whole  superstructure  of  the  generally  accepted 
Protestant  systematic  theology  is  founded  on  the  literal  ac- 
ceptance of  the  Scriptural  account  of  the  fall  of  Adam  and 


5o8      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

Eve.  If  this  account  is  not  a  true  history,  then  the  whole 
logical  system  built  on  it,  including  the  doctrines  of  original 
and  imputed  sin,  of  the  plan  of  salvation,  of  grace,  mediation, 
and  atonement,  of  blood  satisfaction  and  blood  purchase,  and 
of  regeneration,  falls  to  the  ground. 

Hear  Dr.  Charles  Hodge,  the  great  Presbyterian  theologian, 
writing  about  1870-71,  on  the  nature  of  the  connection  be- 
tween the  above  doctrines  and  the  account  in  Genesis  of  the 
Fall  of  Man. 

"  Finally  these  facts  (the  Garden  of  Eden  facts)  underlie 
the  whole  doctrinal  system  revealed  in  the  Scriptures.  Our 
Lord  and  His  Apostles  refer  to  them  not  only  as  true,  but  as 
furnishing  the  ground  of  all  the  subsequent  revelations  and 
dispensations  of  God.  It  was  because  Satan  tempted  man,  and 
led  him  into  disobedience,  that  he  became  the  head  of  the 
kingdom  of  darkness,  whose  power  Christ  came  to  destroy, 
and  from  whose  dominion  He  redeemed  His  people.  It  was  be- 
cause we  died  in  Adam  that  we  must  be  made  alive  in  Christ. 
So  that  the  Church  universal  has  felt  bound  to  receive  the 
record  of  Adam's  temptation  and  fall  as  a  true  historical  ac- 
count." 

Hear  Dr.  Hodge  again  when  he  describes  what  the  system 
is  which  is  built  on  this  indispensable  foundation : 

"  In  the  Old  Testament  and  in  the  New,  God  is  declared  to 
be  just,  in  the  sense  that  His  nature  demands  the  punishment 
of  sin ;  that,  therefore,  there  can  be  no  remission  without  such 
punishment,  vicarious  or  personal;  that  the  plan  of  salvation 
symbolically  and  typically  exhibited  in  the  Mosaic  institution, 
expounded  in  the  prophets,  and  clearly  and  variously  taught  in 
the  New  Testament,  involves  the  substitution  of  the  incarnate 
Son  of  God  in  the  place  of  sinners,  who  assumed  their  obliga- 
tion to  satisfy  divine  justice,  and  that  He  did  in  fact  make  full 
and  perfect  satisfaction  for  sin,  bearing  the  penalty  of  the  law 
in  their  stead;  all  this  is  so  plain  and  undeniable  that  it  has 
always  been  the  faith  of  the  Church,  and  is  admitted  to  be  the 
doctrine  of  the  Scriptures  by  the  leading  rationalists  of  our  day." 


Progressive  Liberalism  ^og 

Assuming  the  infallibility  of  the  Bible,  the  Augustinian 
systematic  theology  starts  from  the  Fall  of  Man  as  recorded  in 
Genesis,  and  then  by  a  strict,  logical  process  proves  its  appall- 
ing doctrines  from  the  usage  of  words,  the  habitual  forms  of 
expression,  and  the  pervading  modes  of  presentation  in  the  in- 
fallible Scriptures.  All  its  doctrines  are  proved  by  explicit 
statements  or  assumptions  made  in  the  Bible,  or  by  inferences 
from  these  statements  or  assumptions.  The  process  involves 
something  beyond  the  infallibility  of  the  Scriptures  themselves, 
— namely,  the  unerring  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures.  In 
the  centuries  since  the  Reformation,  and  particularly  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  human  reason,  enriched  by  new  stores 
of  knowledge,  equipped  with  new  methods  of  incisive  inquiry, 
and  fired  with  a  new  zeal  for  truth,  has  gradually  undermined 
the  faith  of  the  majority  of  Protestant  scholars,  first,  in  the 
unerring  interpretation,  and  secondly,  in  the  infallibility  of 
the  Bible  itself.  These  scholars  no  longer  believe  in  the  Fall 
of  Man,  or  in  the  fabric  of  doctrine  which  a  purely  human 
logic  has  built  on  the  Fall.  When  men  begin  to  protest,  or  re- 
solve, that  they  believe  a  given  doctrine,  it  is  a  sure  sign  that 
real  belief  in  that  doctrine  is  fading  away.  Among  the 
masses  of  Protestants  some  belief  in  the  infallibility  of  the 
Bible  still  survives ;  but  the  opening  century  will  doubtless  see 
the  gradual  surrender  of  this  transitional  belief  throughout  the 
Protestant  world.  The  controversial  writings  of  St.  Augus- 
tine have  dominated  Christian  systematic  theology  for  1500 
years.  Luther,  St.  Augustine's  disciple,  prepared  the  ruin  of 
his  master's  system  when  he  declared  the  Bible  infallible,  but 
opened  it  to  the  individual  inquirer.  The  nineteenth  century 
has  seen  the  foundations  of  the  structure  undermined;  the 
twentieth  will  see  it  given  over  to  the  bats  and  the  owls,  so  far 
as  Protestants  are  concerned.  It  is  not  however  the  real  Bible 
which  is  thus  losing  its  hold;  it  is  the  inferential  structure 
which  has  been  built  around  and  over  it. 

If  it  be  said  that  though  implicit  faith  in  the  Bible  as  an  in- 
fallible revelation  of  literal  truth  be  lost,  the  real  foundations 


5IO      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

of  the  old  dogmatics  will  remain  unshaken,  because  they  rest 
on  human  nature  and  experience,  the  answer  is  that  civilized 
society's  convictions  about  human  nature  and  human  conduct 
have  undergone  profound  modifications  during  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  are  manifestly  undergoing  still  further  modifica- 
tion. Thus,  instead  of  attributing  sin  in  the  individual  to  the 
innate  corruption  and  perversity  of  his  nature,  modern  society 
attributes  it  in  many  instances  to  physical  defects,  to  bad  en- 
vironment, to  unwise  or  wrongful  industrial  conditions,  to  un- 
just social  usages,  or  to  the  mere  weakness  of  will  which  can- 
not resist  present  indulgences  even  when  the  cost  in  future 
suffering  stares  the  victim  in  the  face.  With  this  fundamental 
reconsideration  of  the  whole  doctrine  of  sin  goes  grave  dis- 
cussion of  the  till-now-accepted  ideas  of  justice,  punishment, 
and  reformation.  The  theologians  used  to  be  sure  that  they 
perfectly  understood  God's  justice.  The  jurists  and  legislators 
of  to-day  are  not  at  all  sure  that  they  understand  even  what 
human  justice  ought  to  be.  On  the  whole  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury is  the  least  presumptuous  of  the  centuries — the  twentieth 
will  be  more  modest  still.  Calvin  and  Jonathan  Edwards  im- 
agined that  they  perfectly  understood  the  objects  of  the  eternal, 
hopeless  agonies  of  the  damned.  In  contrast  listen  to  what  a 
poet-physician  says  about  the  mystery  of  occasional  pain  in  this 

world. 

**  One  stern  democracy  of  anguish  waits 
By  poor  men's  cots — within  the  rich  man's  gates. 
What  purpose   hath    it?     Nay,    thy   quest   is    vain: 
Earth  hath  no  answer:     If  the  baffled  brain 
Cries,  'tis  to  warn,  to  punish — Ah,  refrain ! 
When  writhes  the  child,  beneath  the  surgeon's  hand, 
What  soul  shall  hope  that  pain  to  understand? 
Lo!     Science  falters  o'er  the  hopeless  task. 
And  Love  and  Faith  in  vain  an  answer  ask, 
When  thrilling  nerves  demand  what  good  is  wrought 
When  torture  clogs  the  very  source  of  thought." 

2.  It  is  not  the  authority  of  the  Bible  only  which  has  de- 
clined during  the  closing  century;  all  authority  has  lost  force 
— authority  political,  ecclesiastical,  educational,  and  domestic. 


Progressive  Liberalism  511 

The  decline  of  political  or  governmental  authority  since  the 
Reformation  is  very  striking.  The  present  generation  received 
with  derision  the  sentiment  attributed  some  years  ago — incor- 
rectly in  all  probability — to  the  present  Emperor  of  Germany 
— salus  populi  regis  voluntas ; — yet  at  the  period  of  the  Refor- 
mation nobody  would  have  questioned  that  sentiment.  Ec- 
clesiastical authority  has  declined  in  a  still  more  marked  de- 
gree; and  whereas  the  Church  used  to  rule  not  only  the  con- 
sciences and  opinions,  but  the  daily  habits  of  all  Christians, 
there  is  now  even  among  devout  Catholics  the  sharpest  de- 
marcation between  the  limited  province  in  which  the  Church 
is  absolute  and  the  large  secular  rest  of  the  world.  In  educa- 
tion the  whole  conception  of  the  function  of  the  teacher  has 
changed  within  fifty  years.  He  no  longer  drives  his  pupils 
to  their  tasks,  but  leads  and  inspires  them ;  he  no  longer  com- 
pels them  to  copy  or  commit  to  memory,  but  incites  them  to 
observe  and  think.  Instead  of  imposing  on  them  his  opinions, 
tastes  and  will,  he  induces  them  to  form  their  own  opinions, 
studies  their  tastes,  and  tries  to  invigorate  their  wills  and  teach 
them  self-control.  But  in  no  field  is  the  diminution  of  arbi- 
trary authority  more  striking  than  in  the  family  and  the 
home ;  and  in  no  field  has  the  law  more  clearly  recognized  the 
new  liberty  than  in  the  domestic  relations. 

What  authority  is  taking  in  some  measure  the  place  of  these 
declining  authorities?  I  say  in  some  measure,  because  the 
world  has  had  too  much  of  authority  and  not  enough  of  love 
and  freedom.  There  is  an  authority  which  during  all  the 
closing  century  has  been  increasing  in  influence;  it  is  the  de- 
veloping social  sense,  or  sense  of  kin.  On  the  negative  side, 
the  restrictions  which  this  sense  of  social  solidarity  and  mu- 
tual accountability  impose  are  in  some  ways  extraordinarily 
comprehensive  and  absolute.  The  conviction  that  one  must 
not  do  anything  which  can  be  offensive  or  injurious  to  one's 
associates  is  highly  restrictive, — especially  when  this  convic- 
tion becomes  common  and  gets  incorporated  in  statute  law. 
Thus  it  may  be  doubted  if  any  autocrat  ever  imposed  on  a 


5 1 2      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

• 

population  such  a  personal  restriction  as  the  prohibition  of 

spitting  on  sidewalks  and  in  public  vehicles ;  yet  this  prohibi- 
tion is  a  public  regulation  in  Massachusetts  and  many  other 
parts  of  the  Union,  although  it  springs  solely  from  the  social 
sense  that  the  individual  must  not  do  what  might  propagate 
disease  from  himself  to  others.  In  many  parts  of  modern  so- 
ciety the  social  sense  plays  the  part  of  a  very  arbitrary  ruler; 
as  appears  clearly  in  the  surrender  to  trades-unions  of  the 
most  important  elements  of  their  personal  liberty  by  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  persons.  On  the  positive  side,  this  social 
solidarity  is  quite  as  effectual  to  procure  affirmative  action  as 
it  is  to  secure  prohibitions.  The  British  navy  used  to  be  re- 
cruited by  the  press  gang, — that  is,  promising  young  sailors 
were  seized  by  force  in  the  coast  towns,  and  dragged  on  board 
the  ships.  Now,  Kipling  and  his  kind  write  ballads,  and  the 
newspapers,  pulpits,  and  popular  meetings  arouse  a  gregarious 
enthusiasm  which  sends  thousands  of  young  men  to  labor, 
suffer,  or  die  in  South  Africa.  It  is  the  sense  of  common 
cause  which  supplies  the  impelling  motive.  Would  it  not  be 
hard  to  state  this  doctrine  better  than  it  is  stated  in  the  brief 
phrase, — ''  No  man  liveth  to  himself,  and  no  man  dieth  to 
himself"? 

Another  manifestation  of  the  power  of  the  new  social  soli- 
darity is  the  tendency  in  democratic  governments,  and  in  some 
measure  in  all  governments,  to  relieve  the  necessities  and  in- 
crease the  satisfactions  of  the  poorest  classes  on  the  one  hand, 
and  on  the  other  to  appropriate  in  part,  and  to  divide  anew  as 
soon  as  possible,  large  accumulations  of  property  in  single 
hands.  The  recent  legislation  of  Switzerland,  France,  Eng- 
land, and  the  United  States  illustrates  the  strength  of  this  new 
authority — particularly  the  laws  of  these  countries  concern- 
ing progressive  income  taxes,  succession  taxes,  and  hours  of 
labor,  and  for  the  protection  of  workmen  against  accident,  and 
of  women  and  children  against  overwork.  Much  of  the  legis- 
lation stigmatized  as  parental  is  really  due  to  this  strong  sen- 
timent of  social  solidarity.     It  has  all  sprung  up  in  the  nine- 


Progressive  Liberalism  5 1 3 

teenth  century,  and  it  will  doubtless  grow  rapidly  in  the  twen- 
tieth. 

3.  The  nineteenth  century  has  seen  the  rise  of  a  new  body 
of  learning  called  sociology.  It  is  a  body  of  doctrine  clearly 
founded  on  the  ethics  of  the  New  Testament ;  but  it  is  at  pres- 
ent in  a  confused,  amorphous  state.  One  of  its  characteris- 
tics, however,  is  hopeful — it  aims  at  the  prevention  rather 
than  the  cure  of  sin  and  evil ;  just  as  preventive  medicine  aims 
at  the  prevention  of  disease  both  in  the  single  individual  and 
in  society  at  large.  The  Old  Testament  relies  chiefly  on  pro- 
hibition and  penalty.  It  says,  "  Thou  shalt  not."  For  break- 
ing this  command,  so  much  penalty  is  imposed.  "  In  sorrow 
shalt  thou  bring  forth  children  all  the  days  of  thy  life."  **  Thy 
seed  shall  be  cut  off  forever."  ''  Visiting  the  iniquity  of  the 
fathers  on  the  children  unto  the  third  and  fourth  generation  of 
them  that  hate  me."  Now,  faith  in  penalty  as  a  preventive 
of  wrong-doing  and  evil  has  rapidly  declined  during  the  nine- 
teenth century;  and  this  is  equally  true  of  penalty  in  this 
world  and  of  penalty  in  the  next.  Barbarous  punishments 
have  been  everywhere  abolished  in  the  civilized  world,  or  are 
used  only  in  moments  of  panic  or  delirium;  and  barbarous 
conceptions  of  punishment  after  death  have  been  everywhere 
mitigated  or  abandoned.  The  new  sociology,  based  on  the 
Gospel  doctrine  of  love  to  God  and  love  to  man,  seeks  the  im- 
provement of  environment,  the  rectification  of  vice-breeding 
evils  and  wrongs,  and  the  actual  realization  of  the  ideal — 
"  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." 

Sociology  rejects  also  a  motive  which  systematic  theology 
has  made  much  of  for  centuries, — the  motive  of  personal  sal- 
vation, which  is  essentially  a  selfish  motive  whether  it  relates 
to  this  world  or  to  the  next.  Certainly  it  is  no  better  a  motive 
for  eternity  than  it  is  for  these  short  earthly  lives  of  ours.  The 
motive  power  of  personal  reformation  and  good  conduct,  and 
the  source  of  happiness  must  always  be  found  in  love  of  others 
and  desire  to  serve  them,  self-forgetfulness  and  disinterested- 
ness being  indispensable  conditions  of  personal  worth  and  of 


5 1 4      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

well-grounded  joy.  Sociology  perceives  that  the  multitude 
can  no  longer  be  reconciled  to  a  state  of  misery  in  this  world 
by  the  deceptive  promise  of  comforts  and  rewards  in  the  next. 
It  sympathizes  with  them  in  loudly  demanding  joys  in  this 
world.  The  promise  of  Abraham's  bosom  after  death  should 
not  reconcile  Lazarus  to  lying  at  the  gate  full  of  sores  now. 
The  multitudes  themselves  perceive  that  wretchedness  in  this 
world  may  easily  unfit  them  for  worthy  enjoyments  either 
now  or  hereafter;  since  it  may  dwarf  the  mental  and  moral 
faculties  through  which  high  enjoyments  come.  Sociology 
is  of  the  mind  of  the  angel  who  bore  a  torch  in  one  hand  and 
a  vase  of  water  in  the  other,  with  the  one  to  burn  Heaven, 
and  with  the  other  to  quench  Hell,  that  men  might  be  influ- 
enced neither  by  the  hope  of  the  one  nor  the  fear  of  the  other. 

4.  What  effect  will  the  great  changes  in  public  opinion 
about  revelation  and  religion  which  the  nineteenth  century  has 
wrought  and  the  twentieth  will  spread,  have  on  the  estimate 
which  the  next  two  or  three  generations  will  place  on  the  char- 
acter and  life  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ?  We  have  already  learned 
that  the  fundamental  ethical  conceptions  recorded  in  the  Gos- 
pels had  all  been  anticipated.     The  fatherhood  of  God,  the 
brotherhood  of  man,  the  conception  of  God  as  a  spirit,  and  the 
Golden   Rule, — to  name  some  of  the  most   fundamental  of 
these  conceptions, — all  occur  in  writings  earlier  than  the  Gos- 
pels.    But  what  of  that?     The  true  reformer  is  not  he  who 
first  conceives  a  fruitful   idea;    but  he  who  gets  that   idea 
planted  in  many  minds,  and   fertilizes  it  there  through  the 
power  of  his  personality.     Such  a  reformer  was  Jesus.     He 
spread  abroad,  and  commended  to  the  minds  of  many  men, 
the  loftiest  ethical  conceptions  the  race  had  won.     He  vital- 
ized them  by  his  winning  and  commanding  presence,  and  sent 
them  flying  abroad  on  the  wings  of  his  own  beautiful  and  he- 
roic spirit.     In  a  barbarous  age  he  was  inevitably  given  the 
reward  of  deification,  just  as  the  Pharaohs  and  Alexanders 
and  Caesars  were;   and  his  memory  was  surrounded  by  clouds 
of  marvel  and  miracle  during  the  four  or  five  generations 


Progressive  Liberalism  515 

which  passed  before  the  Gospels  took  any  settled  form.  The 
nineteenth  century  has  done  much  to  disengage  him  in  the 
Protestant  mind  from  these  encumbrances;  and  the  twentieth 
will  do  more  to  set  him  forth  simply  and  grandly  as  the  love- 
liest and  best  of  human  seers,  teachers,  and  heroes.  Let  no 
man  fear  that  reverence  and  love  for  Jesus  will  diminish  as 
time  goes  on.  The  pathos  and  the  heroism  of  his  life  and 
death  will  be  vastly  heightened  when  he  is  relieved  of  all  su- 
pernatural attributes  and  powers.  The  human  hero  must  not 
have  foreknowledge  of  the  glorious  issue  of  his  sacrifices  and 
pains;  he  must  not  be  sure  that  his  cause  will  triumph;  he 
must  suffer  and  die  without  knowing  what  his  sacrifice  will 
bring  forth.  The  human  exemplar  should  have  only  human 
gifts  and  faculties.  If  these  principles  are  true,  the  more 
completely  progressive  liberalism  detects  and  rejects  the  mis- 
understandings and  superstitions  with  which  the  oral  tradi- 
tion and  written  record  concerning  the  life  of  Jesus  were  in- 
evitably corrupted,  the  more  will  love  and  reverence  grow  for 
the  splendors  of  truth  and  moral  beauty  which,  as  a  matter  of 
indubitable  fact,  have  shone  from  the  character  and  teachings 
of  this  Jewish  youth.  Already  we  see  many  signs  of  the  ap- 
proaching fulfilment  of  Whittier's  prophecy, — 

**Our  Friend,  our  Brother,  and  our  Lord 
What  may  thy  service  be? 
Nor  name,  nor  form,  nor  ritual  word 
But  simply  follow  Thee." 


The  Effect  of  Recent  Theological  Discus- 
sions on  the  Upper  Classes  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Race 


The  Effect  of  Recent  Theological 
Discussions  of  the  Upper  Classes 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Race 

BY 

The  Very  Reverend  F.  W.  FARRAR,  D.D.,  F.R.S. 

THERE  can  be  no  question  that  great  changes  have  come 
over  the  views  of  thinking  men  in  the  upper  classes 
with  regard  to  theological  questions  during  this  century.  It 
does  not  fall  under  my  subject  to  consider  how  far  these  altered 
and  advancing  views  have  affected  the  opinion  and  lives  of  the 
masses  of  working-men ;  but  we  may  feel  sure  that  convictions 
filter  downwards,  and  that  views  which  have  become  preva- 
lent in  higher  circles  are  sure  in  time  to  spread  imperceptibly, 
and  to  affect  those  who  would  not  have  had  sufficient  educa- 
tion or  thoughtfulness  to  arrive  at  such  opinions  for  them- 
selves. There  is  nothing  to  regret  in  the  fact  that  advancing 
knowledge  alters  the  complexion,  and  shifts  the  perspective, 
of  long  current  beliefs.    It  is  inevitable  that  it  should  be  so ;  for 

"  We  know  that  through  the  ages  one  increasing  purpose  runs, 
And  the  thoughts  of  men  are  widened  by  the  progress  of  the  suns." 

Nor  is  it  only  inevitable,  it  is  also  most  desirable  that  the 
general  advance  in  knowledge  and  in  insight  should  shed  fresh 
light — not  indeed  on  the  eternal  and  essential  elements  of  re- 
ligion, which  have  remained  the  same  in  all  ages,  but  on  the 
point  of  view  under  which  we  regard,  and  the  manner  in  which 
we  formulate  and  explain,  the  statements  of  theology.  The 
light  of  all  real  knowledge  is  light  from  heaven,  and  it  cannot 
lead  any  faithful  soul  astray.  Nothing  can  be  more  fatal, 
even  to  moral  growth  and  spiritual  progress,  than  a  stereotyped 
immobility; — that  blind  and  narrow  stagnation  in  the  infal- 
libility of  optional  ignorance,  which  delivers  brawling  judg- 
ments all  day  long  on  all  things,  unashamed,  and  which  has 

519 


5  20      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

always  been  as  characteristic  of  imperfect  and  narrow  re- 
ligionists as  it  was  of  the  "  priests  and  Pharisees  and  hypo- 
crites "  in  the  days  of  our  Lord.  The  example  of  those  days, 
even  if  they  stood  alone,  would  be  sufficient  to  show  us  that 
men,  in  the  name  of  religion — and  even  whilst  they  claim  to 
be  the  sole  faithful  supporters  of  true  religion, — are  capable 
of  committing,  in  the  name  of  the  religion  which  they  profess, 
the  deadliest  of  crimes.  If  any  other  instances  were  wanting, 
we  may  see  them  in  the  deadly  guilt  of  Inquisitors,  who,  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord  of  Love,  blackened  the  blue  of  heaven 
with  the  Tophet-smoke  of  their  bale-fires  of  hell,  by  burning 
many  a  dear  saint  of  God,  who  held  the  truth  which,  to  their 
own  perdition,  they  rejected;  and  who  lived  lives  transcend- 
dently  holier  and  purer  than  their  own.  In  a  milder  form  we 
may  see  the  same  pernicious  results  of  incompetent  religious 
arrogance  in  the  fact  that  some  of  the  best,  wisest,  most 
earnest  and  most  brilliantly  gifted  Divines  of  our  own  day — 
men  like  Professor  Maurice  Kingsley,  and  F.  W.  Robertson, 
and  Dean  Stanley,  and  others — were  all  through  their  lives 
the  favourite  victims  of  the  venomous  attacks  with  which  the 
so-called  "  religious "  press  of  party  Church  newspapers  is 
rife.  Like  Wesley  and  Whitefield,  like  Luther  and  Melancthon, 
like  Savonarola  and  many  more,  these  men— owing  to  the 
refusal  of  "  priests  "  to  accept  the  liew  truths — which  shake 
their  usurped  authority,  and  expose  the  ignorant  baselessness 
of  their  "  infallible  '*  judgments — have  stood  up. 

"  The  very  butt  of  slander,  and  the  blot  of  every  dart  that 
malice  ever  shot."  An  unprogressive  religion  is  a  decadent 
and  dying  religion;  a  religion  which  refuses  new  light  is  a 
dead  religion.  Such  forms  of  belief  will  inevitably  sink  into 
abject  and  priest-ridden  superstitions,  or  into  the  cumbersome 
paraphernalia  of  externalism,  which  thinks  that  God  cares  for 
the  murmuring  of  rites  and  ceremonies,  whereas,  he  has  again 
and  again  taught  us  that  He  requires  our  hearts,  and  that 
without  heart  sincerity  all  else  is  but  as  the  small  dust  of  the 
balance. 


Effect  of  Recent  Theological  Discussions    521 

Let  me  point  out  one  or  two  respects  in  which  the  thoughts  of 
men  respecting  the  truths  of  rehgion  have  been  enlarged  and 
changed. 

I.  It  is  so  as  regards  our  conceptions  of  God. 

One  of  the  most  competent  of  Hving  men  of  science — Mr. 
Alfred  Wallace — in  his  very  interesting  book  "  This  Wonder- 
ful Century,"  estimates  that  this  century  has  made  greater  ad- 
vances in  science,  both  theoretical  and  applied,  than  all  the 
centuries  of  the  past  put  together.  Now  science  has  revealed 
to  us  immeasurably  more  of  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  the  in- 
finitude of  the  Universe  than  was  ever  remotely  dreamed 
of  in  past  ages.  The  nature  of  the  relation  of  God  to  man 
cannot  be  quite  the  same  as  it  was  when  man  regarded  the  earth 
as  the  centre  of  the  whole  universe,  and  thought  that  the  sun 
and  the  moon  and  the  starry  heavens  only  existed  to  give  it 
light.  A  Greek  philosopher  defined  the  stars  as  ''  golden  nails 
fixed  in  the  crystalline  sky."  We  now  know  something  of  the 
immeasurable,  inconceivable  vastness  of  God's  universe,  and 
we  know  that  the  earth  is  but  as  a  speck  in  the  intense  inane, 
a  mote  of  dust  in  the  streaming  of  infinite  light.  We  can  no 
longer  rest  in  schemes  and  systems  which  professed  to  speak 
of  God  "  as  though  he  were  a  man  in  the  next  room ;  "  or 
which  proceeded  on  the  conviction  that  "  man's  nothing-per- 
fect "  could  comprehend  "  God's  all-complete."  We  have 
learnt  more  modesty  and  humility,  more  awful  reverence  for 
Him  "  whose  ways  are  past  finding  out."  We  are  no  longer 
content  to  employ  our  days  in  the  elaboration  of  "  schemes  " 
and  ''  systems  "  and  "  philosophies  "  of  the  plan  of  salvation ; 
and  in  thus  dropping  buckets  into  empty  wells,  and  growing 
old  in  drawing  nothing  out.  We  are  content  with  holier 
modesty,  to  lay  our  hands  upon  our  lips  and  to  say : 

"  So  runs  my  dream: — but  what  am  I? 
An  infant  crying  in  the  night, 
An  infant  crying  for  the  light, 
And  with  no  language  but  a  cry." 


522      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

Changed  modes  of  expression,  changed  points  of  view, 
which — though  they  do  not  affect  any  radical  and  essential 
view  of  religion — seem  to  require  changed  methods  of  ex- 
pression may  partly  account  for  the  deep  and  growing  dis- 
like to  the  use  of  the  so-called  "  Athanasian  "  Creed  in  our 
public  services.  The  Church  of  England  is  the  only  Church 
in  all  Christendom  which  recites  this  creed  in  common  wor- 
ship. The  American  Church  has  wisely  discarded  the  practice, 
as  also  has  the  Irish  Church.  The  dislike  to  it  does  not  in  the 
least  spring  from  any  lack  of  orthodoxy  respecting  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity,  but  from  the  scholastic  form  of  the  creed, 
with  its  repetition  of  technical  words — like  "  incomprehen- 
sible," "  substance,''  '*  person  "—of  which  not  one  person  in  a 
hundred  knows  the  true  and  technical  meaning.  It  also  rises 
from  the  damnatory  clauses,  which  no  honest  or  enlightened 
man  can  repeat  without  the  subauditur  of  large  exceptions 
and  explanations,  and  which  the  multitude  usually  understand 
in  a  false  sense,  and  in  that  sense  rightly  repudiate  as  un- 
scriptural  and  false.  The  narrow  and  anathematizing  pseudo- 
orthodoxy  which  vehemently  insists  on  the  retention  of  this 
creed  in  public  worship  is  extremely  harmful  to  the  Church  of 
England  and  alienates  multitudes  from  her  worship.  Late,  very 
ill  constructed,  harsh,  and  superfluously  verbose,  the  creed  is  not 
in  the  slightest  degree  necessary,  since  the  whole  Catholic  faith 
is  amply  and  far  better  stated  in  the  ''  Nicene  "  and  the  *'  Apos- 
tles' "  creeds.  It  was  once  my  curious  fortune  to  stand  in  church 
facing  a  seat  on  which  were  seven  or  eight  men  of  universal 
fame  in  Art,  in  Literature,  in  Science,  in  public  life.  The  ex- 
pression of  weariness  and  dislike  upon  the  face  of  every  one  of 
them  while  the  creed  was  being  repeated  was  a  lesson  to  me;  for 
each  one  of  them  was  not  in  any  sense  a  sceptic,  but  a  Christian 
and  a  communicant.  All  of  them  felt  how  utterly  unlike  was 
the  form  assumed  by  this  creed  to  the  general  teaching  and 
method  of  Holy  Scripture.  Not  one  of  them  doubted,  so  far 
as  I  knew,  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  but  they  all  felt  that  the 
harsh,  formal  and  technical  dogmatism  of  the  creed  added  noth- 


Effect  of  Recent  Theological  Discussions    523 

ing  to  true  faith :  while — since  so  few  are  capable  of  grasping 
its  real  significance — it  tends  "-o  minister  directly  to  popular 
error.  It  is,  however,  doubtfuV  A^hether  at  this  moment  there 
is  enough  of  progressive  open-mindedness  in  the  English 
Church  to  follow,  in  this  particular,  the  wiser  example  of  all 
the  other  churches  of  Christendom  in  not  demanding  the  con- 
stant public  recital  of  this  late  and  technical  creed. 

2.  Another  subject  on  which  there  have  been  great  changes 
of  view  is  the  Atonement.  I  believe  that,  not  only  in  the  upper 
classes,  but  in  all  classes,  men  believe  as  firmly  as  ever  they  did 
in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  by  whose 
blood — that  is  by  whose  essential  life  divinely  imparted  to  us — 
we  are  cleansed  and  saved.  But  they  do  not  believe — and  they 
rightly  do  not  believe — in  the  hideous  travesties  of  the  doctrine 
which  have  been  intruded  upon  mankind  by  an  ignorant  and 
systematizing  theology,  based  on  the  distortion  and  the  misin- 
terpretation of  isolated  metaphors,  or  the  extravagant  forcing 
of  emotional  language  to  impossible  logical  conclusions.  They 
repudiate,  and  rightly  repudiate,  the  blasphemy  of  representing 
God,  the  Father,  as  all  wrathful  and  inexorable  justice,  and 
God,  the  Son,  as  all  loving  mercy.  They  accept  no  violent  dis- 
integration of  the  persons  of  the  blessed  Trinity  in  the  work  of 
man's  salvation.  They  toss  aside  the  age-long  absurdity  which 
represented  God  as  paying  to  the  Devil  (!)  the  ransom  of 
Christ's  death.  They  no  less  reject  the  forensic  theory  by 
which  St.  Anselm  replaced  the  old  error — a  theory  which  dwelt 
on  the  "  exact  equivalent  "  of  ''  vicarious  substitutions,"  and 
which  foisted  into  scripture  a  mass  of  colossal  or  self-contra- 
dictory inferences,  elaborated  into  a  "  philosophy  of  the  plan  of 
salvation,"  which  relied  exclusively  on  passing  illustrations, 
and  resembled  a  pyramid  built  upon  its  apex.  Men  have  be- 
come impatient — and  rightly  impatient — of  "  the  ever-widen- 
ing spiral  ergo  drawn  from  the  narrow  aperture  of  single 
texts."  They  are  more  than  content  to  know  and  be  sure  that 
"  God  is  love,"  and  that  '*  God  in  Christ " — not  as  it  is  erro- 
neously   translated    in    our    Authorized    Version    "  God    for 


524     Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

Christ's  sake ''  forgives  us  our  sins,  when,  by  the  aid  of  His 
Holy  Spirit,  they  are  repented  of.  The  clearing  away  from  the 
doctrine  of  the  Atonement  of  the  gross  anthropomorphism  in- 
troduced into  it  by  the  language  of  self-satisfied  theologians, 
ignorant  preachers  and  impassioned  hymns,  so  far  from  tend- 
ing to  unbelief,  has  left  men  more  humbly  and  deeply  convinced 
that  God,  by  his  infinite  love  and  mercy,  has  granted  us  pardon 
in  Christ,  a  newness  of  life,  even  though  we  cannot  understand 
his  mysteries,  and  cannot  measure  the  arm  of  God  by  the  fin- 
ger of  man. 

3.  Again,  there  has  been  a  decided  change  in  the  thoughts  of 
Christians  about  Eschatology.  They  now  see  that  nothing  in 
Scripture  necessitates  the  crude  and  glaring  horrors,  the 
ghastly  and  revolting  misrepresentations  of  one  or  two  Scrip- 
ture metaphors,  which  have  been  consolidated  into  the  doctrine 
of  '*  Hell-fire.''  I  have  in  my  possession  a  revolting  little  pic- 
ture which  used  to  be  given  by  Romish  priests  to  children  and 
women,  representing  a  human  being  standing  naked  in  red 
flames,  of  which  the  black  smoke  is  smeared  with  hideous 
blood  gouts,  while  loathly  serpents  are  twining  round  and  round 
him,  burying  their  fangs  in  his  convulsive  face,  and  their 
forked  tails  into  the  flesh  of  his  arms;  while  underneath  is 
written  in  old  French,  "  Pour  n'y  avoir  pont  pance"  Strange 
that  Christians  could  really  believe  on  the  strength  of  a  grossly 
misrepresented  metaphor  which  there  is  no  more  excuse  for 
taking  literally  than  there  would  be  for  taking  literally  the 
metaphor  of  "  Abraham's  bosom  " — that  a  God  of  Love  could 
be  happy  while  the  creatures  of  His  hands  were  writhing  hope- 
lessly and  for  ever  in  unutterable  material  torments !  Yet  that 
they  could  maintain  such  conceptions  is  sufficiently  proved  by 
Dante's  Inferno,  as  much  as  by  endless  hymns  and  religious 
manuals.  There  has  been  a  decided  and  a  blessed  change  of 
view  as  to  these  cruel  imaginings.  When  my  "  Eternal  Hope  " 
was  published,  I  lived  for  weeks  and  months  amid  a  hailstone 
of  anathemas.  Now  the  majority  of  thinking  and  educated 
Christians  hold  the  view  which  I  there  maintained — that  sin 


^Effect  of  Recent  Theological  Discussions    525 

indeed  is  always  punishment;  but  that  there  is  no  proof  that 
repentance  and  pardon  will  not  be  always  possible ;  and  that  we 
may  trust  in  the  mercy  of  God  ''  for  ever  and  ever  " — or  as  it 
is,  literally,  in  the  original,  *'  for  ever  and  beyond."  We  have 
learned — or  at  any  rate  all  thinking  and  educated  men  have 
learned — that  "  everlasting  "  (  atSto?  )  which  occurs  but  twice 
in  the  New  Testament  is  not  a  synonym  of  "'  eternal  "  (atinos  ) 
but  the  direct  antithesis  of  it ;  the  former  being  the  unrealisable 
conception  of  endless  time,  and  the  latter  referring  to  a  state 
from  which  our  imperfect  human  conception  of  time  is  abso- 
lutely excluded. 

4.  Once  more,  there  has  been  a  radical  and  most  imperatively 
called  for  change  in  the  old  superstition  of  what  is  called  "  ver- 
bal inspiration."  We  know  that  God  speaks  to  us  out  of  His 
holy  book;  we  know  that  it  contains  His  revelation  of  Him- 
self; we  know  that  it  is  as  a  whole  the  most  supreme  of  col- 
lected literatures;  we  know  that  all  the  rest  of  the  literatures 
of  the  world  put  together  could  not  supply  its  place;  but  we 
know  also  that  it  is  a  plain  positive  duty  to  consider  it  in  the 
heaven-sent  light  of  advancing  knowledge;  we  know  that  all 
its  incidental  utterances  are  not  final  or  infallible;  we  know 
that  some  of  its  books  are  composite  in  structure  and  that  some 
were  written  in  times  much  later  than  the  authors  whose  names 
they  bear ;  we  know  that  the  Old  Testament — as  in  the  books  of 
Daniel  and  Jonah  and  in  the  sublime  story  of  the  Fall — admits 
(as  our  Lord's  parables  also  consecrated)  the  use  of  Hag- 
gadah,  or  "  moral  allegory ;  "  we  know  that  the  divine  en- 
lightenment, which  we  call  ''  inspiration,"  did  not  exclude  the 
human  element  in  the  imperfect  medium  by  which  it  was  com- 
municated ;  and  that,  in  unimportant  and  minor  matters  it  left 
the  possibility  of  error ;  we  know,  above  all,  that  Scripture  is 
the  true  sense  of  scripture,  as  St.  Augustine  says ;  that  Scrip- 
ture is,  and  only  is,  what  scripture  means ;  that  it  must  be  inter- 
preted as  a  whole ;  and  that  the  totality  of  its  teaching  must  not 
be  perverted  by  insistence  on  the  interpretation  which  we,  for 
party  and  for  other  purposes,  may  choose  to  distort  out  of  its 


526       Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

isolated  and  incidental  phrases.  Our  reverence  for  Holy 
Scripture  has  not  been  diminished,  but  has  been  indefinitely 
increased  by  the  study  and  the  criticism  and  the  progressive 
enlightenment  which  have  led  us  to  a  truer  estimate  of  its  place 
and  meaning  in  the  dealings  of  God  with  men. 

On  the  whole,  then,  I  am  hopeful  as  to  the  stability  of  our 
Christian  convictions  in  the  minds  of  men  of  all  classer.  The 
leaders  of  intellectual  research  may  not  be  "  orthodox  "  m  the 
old,  narrow,  arrogant,  stereotyped  sense  of  the  word,  which 
imposed  a  yoke  of  bondage  on  the  free  necks  of  Christians, 
who  are  all  God's  priests ;  but  they  believe  in  God,  the  Father, 
and  in  Jesus  Christ,  His  only  Son,  our  Lord ;  and  in  that  Holy 
Spirit  which  he  made  to  dwell  in  us  and  who  yearneth  jeal- 
ously and  tenderly  over  all  whom  God  hath  redeemed. 


The  Religious  Condition  of  the  Working 
Men  in  America  and  the  Effect  of  Recent 
Theological  Discussion  Upon  Them 


The  Religious  Condition  of  the 
Working  Men  of  America  and 
the  Effect  of  Recent  Theological 
Discussion    Upon   Them 

BY 

SAMUEL  M.  JONES,  Esquire 

THE  religious  condition  of  working  men  and  of  all  other 
men  is  practically  the  same.  Society  is  a  unit.  Man  is 
a  social  being,  and  the  fact  that  one  is  asked  to  write  under  a 
title  such  as  forms  the  head  of  this  article,  is  one  of  the  evi- 
dences that  we  are  not  yet  free  from  the  most  deadly  form  of 
scepticism ;  that  is  unbelief  in  one's  fellows,  the  evidence  of  the 
unbelief  being  manifest  in  the  suggestiveness  of  the  title  indi- 
cating that  the  idea  that  man  can  be  dealt  with  as  classes  has 
not  yet  disappeared  from  the  public  mind.  I  do  not  accept 
the  class  idea  at  all.  In  my  own  life,  I  have  been  a  working 
man,  a  superintendent,  a  business  man,  a  manufacturer  and  a 
mayor,  and  in  all  of  these  various  relations  to  society  I  cannot 
see  that  I  was  anything  other  than  a  man,  always,  to  a  very 
great  extent,  moved  by  the  same  impulses,  inspired  by  the  same 
hopes  and  ambitions  and  subject  to  the  same  disappointments, 
failures  and  conflicting  emotions. 

The  very  idea  that  we  must  deal  with  people  as  classes,  in 
addition  to  being  irreligious,  sceptical  and  atheistic,  is  mis- 
leading, confusing  and  almost  an  absolute  hindrance  to  one's 
usefulness  as  a  factor  in  the  educational  work  that  is  carrying 
the  race  forward  to  larger  liberty. 

The  religious  condition  of  the  working  men  in  America 
must,  of  necessity,  be  the  reflex  of  the  religious  condition  of 
the  business  men  and  the  professional  men,  or  the  men  who  do 
not  work.     If  anything  can  be  said  to  be  social  rather  than  in- 

529 


530      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

dividual,  it  must  be  our  religion,  for  there  is  no  way  in  which 
our  religion  can  find  expression  except  in  social  relation;  for 
if  a  man  love  not  his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen,  how  can  he 
love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen  ?  It  follows  then  that  my  re- 
ligious condition  will  be  reflected  in  the  condition  of  those  most 
closely  related  to  me;  under  the  existing  capitalistic  system, 
these  are  the  working  men,  commonly  called  my  employees, 
upon  the  fruit  of  whose  toil  I  may  be  living  an  entirely  idle 
and  wholly  useless  life;  to  such  an  extent  as  I  am  so  living, 
my  life  is  an  immoral  one.  I  am  not  eating  my  bread  in  the 
sweat  of  my  face,  but  rather  I  am  eating  bread  produced  by 
the  sweat  of  another  man's  face,  and  that  other  man  my 
brother.  And  it  is  as  certain  that  the  immorality  which  I  am 
practising  by  using  my  fellow  men  as  mere  instruments  to 
gather  profit  will  be  reflected  in  their  lives  as  the  virus  of  small- 
pox is  certain  to  show  itself  when  injected  into  the  human  body. 

I  have  said  that  I  have  been  unconscious  of  being  anything 
but  a  man  in  the  various  conditions  of  life  through  which  I 
have  passed,  and  I  know  that  I  get  closer  to  the  God  in  my 
fellow  men  when  I  meet  them,  treat  them  and  deal  with  them 
as  equals,  as  integral  parts  of  a  social  whole,  as  people,  than  I 
could  possibly  get  by,  as  it  were,  putting  them  under  a  micro- 
scope and  studying  them  as  classes  or  as  representatives  of  a 
class. 

So  to  those  who  want  to  improve  the  religious  condition  of 
the  working  men  of  America  I  think  I  can  safely  say,  first 
"  remove  the  beam  from  thine  own  eyes,  then  shalt  thou  see 
clearly  to  remove  the  mote  from  the  eye  of  thy  brother."  As 
the  God  in  us  finds  opportunity  for  more  perfect  expression 
through  more  and  more  just  dealing  with  our  fellow  men, 
our  eyes  will  be  opened  and  we  will  see  our  fellow  men,  not 
as  classes  or  separate  and  distinct  individuals,  the  highest  duty 
according  to  prevailing  notions  being  material  interest,  being 
the  getting  of  things,  property,  for  himself ;  but  we  shall  look 
upon  society  as  a  human  whole  and  we  shall  find  our  chief  joy 
and  delight  in  doing  as  a  duty  our  utmost  to  contribute  to  the 


Religious  Condition  of  the  Working  Men    531 

happiness  of  the  whole  social  body.  Such  a  title  as  the  one 
under  which  this  article  is  written  will  have  fallen  into  disuse, 
the  term  working  men  will  have  become  obsolete,  for  when  all 
are  religious  then  all  will  work,  for  nothing  can  be  more  ir- 
religious than  to  live  an  idle  and  useless  life;  every  one  that  so 
lives,  every  one  that  does  not  render  to  society  useful  service 
is  living  a  useless  life  and  living  upon  the  toil  of  some  other 
one. 

We  reach  the  conclusion,  then,  stated  in  the  form  of  a  propo- 
sition in  the  beginning  of  this  article  that  the  religious  con- 
dition of  the  working  men  is  the  religious  condition  of  all  men, 
and  we  understand  more  clearly  than  before  that  '^  no  man 
liveth  to  himself."  Of  course,  I  have  not  used  the  word  re- 
ligious in  any  narrow  sense ;  I  have  rather  used  it  as  including 
all  that  is  best  in  man.  In  the  narrow  and  technical  sense,  I 
presume  the  business  and  the  professional  classes  are  more 
religious  than  the  working  men;  that  is,  that  in  a  larger  pro- 
portion they  are  Church  members  and  attend  the  "  means  of 
grace,"  and  so  on.  But  the  Church  itself,  no  longer  deceived, 
is  coming  to  see  that  there  is  a  difference  between  Pharisaism 
and  religion,  that  there  is  no  real  difference  between  love  to 
God  and  love  to  man,  and  that  the  only  way  of  expressing  one's 
love  to  God  is  in  one's  dealings  with  men.  And  I  believe  that 
in  the  evolutionary  processes  that  now  distinctively  mark  this 
present  epoch,  we  can  see  the  transformation  that  is  taking 
place  inside  the  Church  that  will  one  day  lead  the  Church  to 
take  the  high  place  that  must  be  held  by  some  form  of  institu- 
tion, whether  you  call  it  ''  hall  of  reason  "  or  Church  or  what 
not,  where  men  and  women  will  gather  together  and  dismiss 
their  cares  and  ''  shake  their  hearts  out  together  "  as  the  Ger- 
mans say,  in  fellowship  one  with  another.  When  those  better 
days  come,  we  shall  see  days  that  are  less  strifeful  for  we  shall 
have  learned  that  "  life  consisteth  not  in  things  "  but  rather  in 
being,  in  doing,  in  giving,  instead  of  in  getting. 

The  one  hopeful  sign  of  the  times  that  bids  us  all  take  cour- 
age is  seen  in  the  growth  of  the  religious  sentiment — I  mean 


53 2      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

the  sure  enough  religious  as  separated  from  the  pietistic  no- 
tion— for,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  the  movement  for 
social  reform  is  a  religious  movement.  The  growth  of  the 
idea  of  the  Unity  of  the  entire  race  is  full  of  encouragement 
to  all  lovers  of  righteousness.  No  one  can  be  truly  religious 
who  does  not  accept  this  important  fundamental,  for  the 
thought  of  oneness  is  as  scientific  as  it  is  religious.  If  God  is 
All-Father  then  *'  it  follows  as  the  night  the  day  "  that  all 
mankind  are  brothers.  This  lesson  is  being  taught  in  many 
ways,  '^he  true  spirit  of  Socialism,  that  has  grown  so  mar- 
velously  ^  our  country  during  the  last  few  years,  is  the  spirit 
of  Brothe|hood,  is  religious,  and  while  there  are  many  advo- 
cates of  SScialism  who  are  yet  teaching  according  to  the  nar- 
row conceptions  of  individualism  as  it  finds  expression  in  the 
party  idea  in  our  politics,  yet  I  believe  that  the  day  is  not  far 
distant  when  all  will  see  that  this  teaching  must  give  way  to  the 
logical  interpretation  of  the  broad  principle  towards  the  reali- 
zation of  which  humanity  is  progressing.  Socialism  is  grow- 
ing among  all  so-called  classes — ^perhaps  among  working  men 
faster  than  anywhere  else. 

The  complaint  of  the  party  socialists  is  directed  wholly 
against  the  competitive  system,  and  the  competitive  system  is, 
of  course,  a  system  of  warfare.  We  can  easily  see  that  com- 
petition is  wrong  in  economics,  in  material  things;  that  the 
system  can  never  bring  peace  to  the  world;  that  it  means  the 
survival  of  the  strongest;  in  short,  as  has  been  many  times 
said,  competition  is  war.  The  awakening  of  the  social  con- 
science and  the  religious  impulse  within  us  will  bring  us  to  see 
that  if  competition  is  wrong  anywhere,  then  the  competitive 
principle  must  be  wrong  everywhere.  But  we  are  not  led  to 
see  this  great  truth  by  the  appeals  that  are  made  to  our  material 
interests,  but  only  as  the  appeal  comes  to  the  religious  in- 
stinct; that  is,  to  the  idea  of  Brotherhood  and  duty.  All  will 
admit  that  natural  brothers  ought  not  to  fight  either  for  trade, 
advantage,  through  the  methods  of  business,  or  for  any  other 
advantage  by  the  fiercer  methods  of  warfare.    The  competitive 


Religious  Condition  of  the  Working  Men    533 

spirit  is  the  spirit  of  murder,  and  it  is  evident  to  observing 
persons  that  the  workers  of  the  world  must  lead  in  spreading 
this  great  truth.  Jesus  has  told  us  that  a  knowledge  of  the 
Truth  will  make  us  free,  and  to  me  there  is  something  like 
pathos  in  the  thought  that  there  is  absolutely  no  other  way  for 
the  soul  to  realize  freedom  except  through  a  knowledge  of  the 
Truth.  But  there  is  no  cross  lots  or  short  cut  way.  '*  Ye 
must  be  born  again  "  is  as  literally  true  to-day  as  when  Jesus 
uttered  the  words.  There  is  no  middle  ground.  The  scien- 
tific principle  must  rule  and  does  rule,  else  there  is  no  hope  in 
the  world.  Love  is  the  only  basis  upon  which  we  can  hope 
to  build  an  enduring  state  or  secure  any  sort  of  permanent 
social  order.  The  race  is  struggling  as  never  before  to  realize 
this  truth  in  all  of  its  wonderful  depth  of  meaning.  We  see 
it  in  the  great  growth  of  fraternal  organizations  that  have 
characterized  the  history  of  the  last  few  years ;  we  see  it  in  the 
great  trade  union  movement  that  has  fraternized  and  co-or- 
dinated great  bodies  of  working  men ;  we  see  it,  in  the  countless 
number  of  societies,  clubs,  lodges,  institutions  and  brother- 
hoods that  are  springing  up  all  over  the  world.  In  the  nar- 
rower sense,  these  movements  are  individualistic,  but  in  the 
broader  and  deeper  sense  they  are  social  and  religious.  It  is 
an  expression  of  the  longing  for  Brotherhood,  for  fellowship, 
and  this  awakened  social  conscience  is  the  very  force  that  will 
produce  the  enlightened  intellect  that  will  lead  these  number- 
less organizations  to  see  and  to  understand  the  folly  of  the  un- 
brotherly  method  and  lead  them  finally  into  one  grand  Brother- 
hood— the  good  of  all  being  the  music  that  shall  sing  the  world 
to  its  work. 

"  We  know  that  by  and  by  a  brighter  day  will  come 
When  hate  and  strife  shall  die  and  each  man  own  his  home; 
When  mine  and  thine  are  ours,  and  every  law  is  good, 
And  all  are  pure  as  flowers  in  one  grand  Brotherhood." 

I  am  satisfied  that  "  all  things  work  together  for  good  to 
them  that  love  God ;  "  that  is,  to  them  that  love  the  good. 
And  blessed  are  we  that  our  eyes  see  this  day,  the  day  of  hope 


534      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

and  good  cheer  that  none  of  the  epochs  of  the  past  have  seen ; 
for  we  are  in  the  beginning  of  a  movement  that  is  finally  to 
culminate  in  a  great  revival  of  real  religion  that  shall  exclude 
none,  include  all,  and  that  shall  open  the  eyes  of  our  under- 
standing to  the  real  meaning  of  the  life  and  words  of  Christ, 
whom  we  profess  to  love,  and  that  will  be  the  beginning  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  on  earth. 


The  Effect  of  Recent  Theological  Discus- 
sion on  the  Lower  Classes  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Race 


The  Effect  of  Recent  Theological 
Discussion  on  the  Lower  Classes 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Race 

BY 

Brigadier  S.    L.  BRENGLE 
/.  The  Present  Spiritual  Condition  Of  The  Lower  Classes. 

CHEERY  old  Dr.  Theodore  Cuyler,  after  nearly  two  score 
years  of  Christian  work  in  the  second  Anglo-Saxon 
city  on  the  planet,  looking  out  upon  the  Church  and  world 
from  his  watch  tower  announces  himself  an  optimistic  pessi- 
mist, and  after  twelve  years  of  work  as  a  Salvation  Army 
officer  among  the  lower  classes  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  wisest  mental  attitude  toward  their  spirit- 
ual condition  is  that  of  optimistic  pessimism. 

The  present  religious  condition  of  these  lower  classes  is  far 
above  what  it  was  when  Wesley  and  Whitefield  began  their 
mighty  labours  but  it  is  yet  so  pitiably  low  that,  but  for  the 
abounding  sympathy  and  grace  the  Saviour  bestows,  the  hearts 
of  those  who  daily  confront  the  desperate  and  increasing 
spiritual  need,  would  well  nigh  break  or  become  hopeless  and 
hard  as  stone.  They  are  not  generally  atheistical  or  sceptical, 
but  on  the  contrary  are  keenly  susceptible  to  religious  influence 
and  teaching  and  ready  to  receive  the  gospel,  even  the  most 
besotted  of  them  on  the  Bowery  in  New  York  or  on  Clark 
street,  in  Chicago,  and  yet  they  are  not  largely  reached  by  the 
Church.  They  are  not  exactly  alienated  from  the  Church,  but 
are  rather  like  children  whose  mother  spends  her  time  in  read- 
ing novels  and  going  to  the  theatre,  or  in  efforts  to  reform 
social  customs  or  civil  laws  while  neglecting  her  own  house- 
hold. They  are  not  cared  for,  and  so  they  go  their  own  way, 
thinking  but  little  of  the  Church  because,  as  they  suppose,  the 
Church  thinks  little  of  them ;  they  are  restless  and  unsatisfied, 
and  filled  with  a  hunger  for  they  know  not  what. 

537 


538      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

In  this  particular,  Protestant  Christianity  might  learn  much 
from  Roman  Catholicism,  which  boasts  that  the  poor  have  ever 
been  looked  upon  by  them  as  the  little  children  of  the  Church ; 
and  much  more  from  Jesus,  who  preached  the  gospel  to  the 
poor,  and  presented  this  fact  to  John  the  Baptist  as  the  final  cre- 
dential of  His  divinity,  His  Messiahship.  Effective  efforts  on 
their  behalf  by  Protestant  agencies  are  largely  confined  to  the 
work  done  by  the  Salvation  Army  and  the  numerous  and  in- 
creasing rescue  missions.  In  fact,  these  special  agencies  to 
reach  the  lower  classes  are  largely  a  product  of  the  last  third 
of  this  nineteenth  century,  as  foreign  missions  are  practically 
a  development  of  the  last  hundred  years,  and  unless  the  Church 
devises  practical  methods  and  means  to  meet  the  need,  these 
agencies  will  necessarily  increase  in  number  as  the  population 
increasingly  pours  its  tide  into  the  cities. 

Saloons,  cheap  theatres,  brothels  and  low  clubs  helped  by  a 
mighty  flood  of  impure,  demoralizing,  and  debasing  literature 
are  bidding  for  and  capturing  the  lower  classes  in  a  way  to  fill 
with  gravest  concern  thoughtful  Christian  men  and  women 
who  are  face  to  face  with  the  facts;  while  the  children  that 
swarm  the  streets  by  day  and  night,  with  no  man  to  care  for 
their  souls,  growing  up  in  densest  ignorance  of  Christian 
truth,  familiar  with  brutality,  vice  and  sin  from  babyhood, 
given  to  profanity  and  Sabbath-breaking,  early  forming  the 
drink  and  cigarette  and  worse  habits,  thereby  wrecking  their 
health  and  laying  the  foundations  of  physical  weakness  and 
mental,  moral  and  spiritual  imbecility  for  future  generations, 
are  in  many  instances  developing  into  as  real  a  moral  heathen- 
ism as  can  be  found  in  mid  Africa.  I  assume  that  the  lower 
classes  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  are  mostly  found  in  the  city, 
and  it  is  a  fact  patent  to  all  that,  with  but  few  exceptions,  the 
Churches  follow  the  avenues  and  boulevards,  erecting  mag- 
nificent buildings  which  both  in  locality  and  cost  of  attendance 
are  beyond  the  reach  of  the  poor,  while  no  adequate  provision 
is  made  for  the  crying  spiritual  needs  of  the  unnumbered 
thousands  left  without  shepherds  in  the  slums  and  poverty 


Effect  of  Recent  Theological  Discussion     539 

stricken  portions  of  our  cities.  In  this  way  a  great  gulf  has 
been  digged  between  the  Church  and  the  lower  classes  which 
from  the  side  of  the  poor,  the  ignorant  and  the  vicious  is  prac- 
tically impassable,  but  which  can  be  and  sometimes  is  bridged 
from  the  side  of  the  Churchy 

//.  The  Effect  Of  Recent  Theological  Discussions  Upon  The 
Lower  Classes. 

Recent  theological  discussion  has  not  affected  the  relation 
of  the  masses  to  the  Church  so  much  as  it  has  affected  the  rela- 
tions of  the  Church,  and  especially  of  the  theologians  them- 
selves to  the  masses.  The  masses  never  have  and  never  will 
and,  I  had  almost  said,  never  can  seek  the  Church,  but  the 
Church  is  under  solemn  obligation  and  command  to  seek  the 
masses,  and  whenever  the  faith  of  the  Church  is  undimmed 
and  its  love  aflame  it  does  seek  and  has  no  difficulty  in  finding 
them,  and  at  such  times  the  poor,  the  ignorant,  the  sinful  and 
the  needy  flock  as  doves  to  her  windows. 

The  common  people,  the  lower  classes,  are  deeply  interested 
in  bread,  but  know  little  and  care  less  about  scientific  dietetics, 
and  so  they  know  and  care  but  little  for  systematic  theology 
as  taught  by  the  schools  and  discussed  by  the  clergy,  yet  they 
are  more  deeply  interested  than  many  suppose  in  theology  as 
taught  by  Jesus,  and  Luther,  and  John  Bunyan,  and  George 
Fox,  and  John  Wesley,  and  General  Booth,  and  Billy  Bray, 
Jerry  McAuley,  and  Mr.  Moody.  They  still  hear  such  teacher.^ 
gladly.  Generally  speaking,  they  know  and  hear  nothing  of 
theological  controversies,  or  where  they  do,  it  is  only  as  they 
hear  of  cabinet  discussions  of  finance  or  foreign  policy,  or  as 
peasants  hear  rumours  of  distant  war,  considering  them  all  :o 
be  matters  in  which  they  have  little  or  no  concern. 

They  receive  the  Bible  roughly  as  the  word  of  God;  they 
care  no  more  for  higher  criticism  than  for  higher  mathematics, 
and  they  pay  little  more  attention  to  discussions  about  inspira- 
tion, verbal  errancy  or  inerrancy,  the  theories  of  evolution  and 
kindred  subjects  than  they  do  to  Laplace's  theories  of  the 


540      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

cosmic  universe,  Gladstone's  Homeric  discussions,  or  Miiller's 
studies  in  the  Hindoo  Vedas. 

They  are  more  keenly  alive  to  the  doctrines  of  eschatology, 
though  that  word  would  dumfound  them.  The  future  life, 
with  its  rewards  and  penalties  in  heaven  and  hell  is  usually  a 
reality  to  them,  though  they  would  like  to  doubt  hell,  and  if 
the  doctrine  is  presented  baldly,  simply  to  the  intellect,  they  will 
argue  as  Napoleon  told  Josephine  he  did,  like  devils  against  it. 
But  a  direct,  manly  assault  upon  their  sins,  "  a  centre  rush  " 
for  their  conscience,  an  earnest  appeal  to  their  common  sense, 
their  better  judgment,  their  highest  interests  for  eternity,  to- 
gether with  an  affectionate  disclosure  of  the  long  suffering 
love  and  mercy  and  abounding  grace  and  goodness  of  God  in 
Christ  to  penitent,  believing  souls,  and  *'  the  severity  of  God  " 
to  incorrigible  sinners  and  moral  law  breakers,  are  sufficient 
to  dispel  their  hazy  doubts  about  hell  by  convincing  them  of 
the  unchangeable  enmity  of  the  carnal  mind  toward  God;  the 
need  of  forgiveness,  the  new  birth,  and  the  sanctification  of 
the  indwelling  Holy  Ghost  in  order  to  bring  them  into  har- 
mony with  God  and  fit  them  for  heaven. 

They  cannot  long  be  frightened  by  lurid  word  pictures  of 
the  fiery  torments,  the  intolerable  tortures  of  the  damned  such 
as  our  forefathers  painted  for  their  terrified  hearers,  but  their 
moral  sense  healthily  responds  to  a  plain,  earnest,  honest  dec- 
laration of  the  certain  and  terrible  sequence  of  sin  and  suffer- 
ing such  as  is  being  so  generally  recognized  by  the  masters  of 
modern  literature,  but  neglected,  shall  I  say?  almost  criminally 
neglected,  by  the  pulpit,  where  the  danger  signals  should  never 
be  lowered,  but  where  the  dark  and  awful  reality  can  be  re- 
lieved by  heavenly  flash  lights  of  the  pitying  compassion  and 
forgiving  love  of  the  Father  through  the  Eternal  Son 
"  Before  the  world's  found  tion  slain." 

They  do  not  worry  their  minds  over  subtle  definitions  of  the 
Holy  Trinity,  but  very  readily  accept  Jesus  Christ  as  Saviour 
and  Lord,  as  Prophet,  Priest  and  King  when  once  convicted 
of  sin  and  convinced  that  there  is  no  help  in  themselves  or  in 
man,  but  only  in  the  condescending  grace  of  God. 


Effect  of  Recent  Theological  Discussion     541 

The  immediate  effect  of  such  discussions  upon  the  masses 
is  scarcely  perceptible,  but  where  it  does  affect  them  it  tends 
for  the  time  rather  to  relax  and  weaken  the  influence  of  the 
Church  upon  them  than  otherwise.  To  their  minds  contro- 
versy, even  in  non-essentials,  implies  uncertainty  in  funda- 
mentals, and  they  in  common  with  the  higher  classes  are  alto- 
gether too  ready  to  grasp  this  supposed  uncertainty  and  con- 
strue it  into  a  reasonable  excuse  to  relax  the  strenuous  watch- 
fulness and  self-denial  and  sobriety  necessary  to  obtain  and 
maintain  deadness  to  the  world,  and  an  active  faith  in,  a 
steadfast  devotion  to,  and  a  vivid  vision  of  unseen,  eternal 
things.  Where  they  are  religiously  inclined  they  cling  tenac- 
iously to  the  old  truth,  for  adjustment  to  new  truth  or  to  new 
statements  of  truth,  like  adjustment  to  a  new  shoe,  is  incon- 
venient or  even  painful,  and  such  is  the  sluggishness  of  the 
average  mind,  and  such  is  the  lack  of  intellectual  equipment 
among  the  lower  classes  and  such  their  mental  preoccupation 
in  their  struggle  for  bread  that  they  will  often  discard  both 
the  old  and  the  new  and  walk  forth  in  dogged  and  naked  in- 
difference or  defiant  scepticism  rather  than  put  themselves  to 
the  trouble  of  praying  and  thinking  through  to  the  solid  cer- 
tainty and  assurance  of  truth. 

Theology  as  taught  by  Jesus  and  His  disciples  was  adapted 
to  the  lower  classes  and  it  should  ever  be  so.  Just  as  men  have 
for  ages  made  and  eaten  bread  and  lived  thereby  though  they 
were  utterly  ignorant  of  its  chemical  constituents,  its  scientific 
properties,  just  as  they  have  for  milleniums  rejoiced  and 
walked  in  the  light  of  the  sun  though  unacquainted  with  the 
spectrum  analysis,  so  men,  humble  men,  whose  hearts  and 
spirits  were  broken  and  contrite,  and  who  have  dared  to  trust 
their  heavenly  Father  and  follow  Jesus  Christ  as  their  Saviour 
and  Lord,  have  feasted  on  the  Bread  from  heaven  and  walked 
in  the  light  of  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  though  utterly  igno- 
rant of  the  high  disputes  and  hairsplitting  distinctions  of  either 
deductive  or  inductive,  conservative  or  progressive,  orthodox 
or  heretical  theologians. 


542      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

///.  The  Effect  Of  These  Discussions  Upon  The  Theologians 
And  Churches  In  Their  Relation  To  The  Lower  Classes. 

Dr.  Dollinger  said  (referring  to  his  ''  Checks  to  Antino- 
mianism")  that  John  Fletcher  of  Madeley  had  produced  the 
only  Protestant  work  of  theology  of  value  during  the  latter 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  Dean  Alfred  declared  that 
these  "  Checks  "  for  the  time  being  drove  Calvinism  out  of 
England.  And  yet  so  saintly  was  this  ready  and  invincible 
controversialist  that  John  Wesley  declared  it  to  be  his  opinion 
that  he  was  the  holiest  man  who  had  lived  since  the  apostle 
John.  So  flaming  was  his  evangelistic  spirit  that  he  trans- 
formed the  parish  of  Madeley  and  won  its  lowliest  and  vilest 
people  to  the  Cross,  so  that  Mr.  Wesley  asserted  that  if  he  had 
given  himself  up  to  evangelical  work  he  would  have  surpassed 
Whitefield.  And  so  humble  was  he,  and  so  zealous  for  the  sal- 
vation of  the  lower  classes,  that  he  would  take  a  bell  on  Sunday 
morning  and  ringing  it  from  street  to  street  he  would  call 
them  to  worship. 

While  Albert  Barnes  was  being  tried  before  the  ecclesiastical 
courts  for  heresy,  the  Church  of  which  he  w^as  pastor  was 
aflame  with  revival  fire,  and  so  in  touch  were  he  and  his  Church 
with  God  and  with  the  people  that  the  gracious  outpouring  of 
the  Spirit  and  the  ingathering  of  souls  continued  right  through 
the  trial. 

Judged  by  the  standard  set  by  these  two  men,  the  discussions 
of  the  present  day  have  not  been  favourable  to  the  theologians 
or  to  the  Churches  in  their  relations  to  the  lower  classes. 

When  Luther  preached  he  declared  that  he  paid  no  atten- 
tion to  the  fifty  doctors  of  theology  who  were  in  his  congre- 
gation, but  sought  only  to  reach  the  heads  and  hearts  of  the 
two  thousand  common  people. 

''  Depend  upon  it,"  said  the  father  of  Archbishop  Benson, 
"  Depend  upon  it,  the  doctrine  of  apostolic  succession  is  every- 
thing for  a  man's  own  encouragement  and  help  in  dispirited 
hours,  but  it  is  not  a  doctrine  to  preach  to  the  world."  But 
it  does  not  seem  safe  to  draw  comfort  from,  nor  wise  to  weary 


Effect  of  Recent  Theological  Discussion     543 

one's  self  with,  doctrines  and  controversies  that  cannot  be 
preached.  Speculative  theology  is  dangerous  to  the  spiritual 
life  of  the  Church  and  when  the  children  cry  for  bread,  woe 
to  them,  but  more  still,  woe  be  to  their  teachers,  if  their  cry 
is  answered  with  the  stones  of  speculation. 

Would  it  not  be  well  then  for  our  controversial  theologians 
to  remember  that  **  knowledge  puffeth  up,  but  love  buildeth 
up  "  and  after  many  heart  searchings  and  much  prayer  to  test 
their  views  and  prove  their  arguments  by  going  with  them  and 
preaching  them  to  the  frank,  childlike,  and  yet  strangely  acute 
lower  classes,  with  the  purpose  to  find  out  whether  they  are 
really  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  or  not,  and  unless  they 
bring  about  the  conversion  of  men  as  did  the  doctrines  preached 
by  Paul  and  Luther  and  Wesley  and  General  Booth,  then  cast 
them  aside  as  vain  babblings  ? 

There  is  the  frankness  of  children  among  the  lower  classes. 
They  are  conscious  of  sin,  and  they  do  not  slip  into  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  unconsciously.  There  is  a  crisis  in  their  lives  that 
ushers  them  into  this  blessedness,  and  it  is  the  preaching  not 
of  negations  and  doubts  and  vast  ignorance  and  theological 
novelties  and  guesses,  but  of  positive  truth,  the  things  we 
know  and  are  assured  of  that  bring  about  this  crisis.  Baxter 
and  Wesley  were  the  great  Doctors  in  practical  theology. 
They  were  vigorous  and  undaunted  controversialists,  but  they 
were  also  mighty  soul  winners,  for  in  all  their  discussions  that 
was  the  end  they  sought.  They  applied  doctrine  to  Christian 
experience,  and  Christian  experience  to  doctrine.  They  proved 
the  experience  by  the  word  of  God,  and  they  proved  the  cor- 
rectness of  their  interpretation  of  the  word  by  the  experience 
it  produced  when  preached  to  humble  people. 

I  would  not  discredit  our  theologians,  nor  discourage  dis- 
cussion. Our  fathers  have  asked  questions  and  answered  them 
in  that  way  which  brought  rest  to  their  minds.  But  we  have 
not  attained  unto  knowledge  when  we  have  learned  the  defini- 
tions of  the  fathers.  We  must  needs  ask  the  questions  over 
again  for  ourselves,  and  seek  answers  that  bring  rest  to  our 
minds  and  peace  to  our  hearts.     But  the  rest  and  peace  are 


544      Theology  at  the  Dawn  of  the  Century 

false,  if  faith's  vision  is  not  more  clear  and  love's  devotion 
not  more  ardent  and  the  sheep  for  whom  the  Shepherd  died 
not  sought  after  with  more  lowly,  self-consuming  zeal.  And 
these  results  do  not  seem  so  far  to  have  followed  recent  theo- 
ological  discussion. 

Arminius  was  not  an  evangelist,  but  his  discussions  were 
so  relevant  to  salvation  that  he  cleared  the  way  for  the  large 
freedom  of  Wesley  and  Fletcher,  and  they  wrought  so  mightily 
as  not  only  to  change  the  spiritual  condition  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race,  but  in  a  large  measure  to  such  a  recasting  of  its 
theology  that  has  transformed  it  and  made  it  quite  a  different 
thing  in  this  century  from  what  it  was  in  the  last. 

Theological  discussions  growing  out  of  active  work  and 
burning  passion  for  the  immediate  salvation  of  men  such  as 
those  of  Paul  and  Luther  and  Knox  and  Wesley  and  Fletcher 
will  draw  the  leaders  "loser  to  the  common  people,  but  those 
of  this  age  are  not  oi  that  kind,  and  the  leaders  in  these  dis- 
cussions are  not  leaders  in  any  sense  of  the  word  for  the  evan- 
gelization of  the  masses.  While  Paul  and  Luther  and  Wesley 
combined  broad  and  accurate  scholarship  and  heroic  contro- 
versial combativeness  with  a  flaming  spirit  of  evangelism  that 
led  them  to  the  lower  classes,  the  evangelistic  leaders  of  to-day 
are  not  theologians  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  theologians  are 
not  evangelists  and  soul  winners  on  the  other. 

This  may  in  some  measure  prove  to  be  unfortunate.  There 
will  be  discussion.  There  is  a  needs-be  that  the  foundations  of 
old  beliefs  be  examined  by  each  succeeding  age,  and  theological 
formulas  changed  and  readjusted  to  increasing  light.  But  the 
crying  creed  of  Christendom  to-day,  and  especially  of  the  lower 
classes,  is  not  so  much  for  more  elaborately  equipped  theolo- 
gians, nor  for  a  restatement  of  theology,  as  for  lovers  of  souls, 
and  mighty  knee-workers  and  determined  wrestlers  with  God, 
men  steeped  in  the  spirit  and  skilled  in  the  high  yet  humble  art, 
the  holy  science  of  prayer,  who  know  the  secret  of  the  Lord  and 
can  bring  down  the  fire  of  heaven  upon  the  cold  and  darkened 
altars  of  earth. 


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